At a suggestion I emailed yet another racer about the oil starvation. Answers similar to the Reinke, Mirko, Bondurant responses.
Barry,
> My name is Dan Nixon and myself and several other from the CEG are
> trying to figure out the reason that several persons have had "spun"
> bearings from what may be oil starvation . Some cases have
> been related
> to hard right turns (offramp, track events), some high RPMs, but
> occasionally no apparent stress. Most of these episodes
> (probably 15-20
> have been described are on the street and often low mileage (say 40K
> miles) without admitted low oil levels or lack of maintainence.
>
> Some have suggested the oil pan needs baffles, or that it needs
> screens to breakup aeration or windage tray changes. I saw that you
> group developed a windowed pan which I was hoping might have shed some
> light (literally) on the problem. Have you had any oil related issues
> or learned the cause(s)? If so, any solutions - redesigned pan,
> accusump etc. We are talking street use here in my case, I
> may do some
> SoloII but that's it. I've personally had no problems with my Contour
> SVT but would like to keep it that way. Any help greatly
> appreciated.
OK, on the oil thing ... we knew, from other forms of racing, that at
certain tracks, e.g. Road Atlanta, we WOULD have oiling problems. The oil
(on any stock, wet sump engine), will "stand up" the side of the pan and
block under certain conditions, exposing the oil pickup, and temporarily
starving the engine of oil. Not a good thing. In addition, when that oil
"stands up", it will most likely hit the crankshaft, causing windage and
power drops.
SO, we baffled the pan right out of the chute....building a more extensive
windage tray, putting in some baffling (no spring loaded trap doors) AND
deepening the sump (we "squared" the pan off near the xalxe bellhousing).
In addition, we run a 3 quart accusump. Even with all the pan mods, we
still saw some oil pressure fluctuation until we used the accusump.
So, for the street, I'd recommend a stock pan with the accusump. The
accusump will handle the situations you'd likely encounter (or in
Solo)....and it's a LOT less $ than a modified pan.
>
> Just out of curiosity, how much power are you squeezing out of the
> Duratec (if I can ask).
We're making greater than 120hp/liter
FYI, 120HP/L is 300HP from the N/A 2.5L!
