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As a recovering brand X road racer I have some questions about reliability upgrades for track use. My car is a '94 with the Z07 handling package. Koni dampers are the only suspension upgrade so far. I have done a hill climb event with my 300 treadwear Summer tires and a pure street alignment and the oil system seemed to do fine. What comes next is open track events. The question is once I have R compound tires and an aggressive alignment will the stock oil pan still keep the oil pump pickup submerged? In my road race car years ago I lost an engine due to poor oil control and I'd rather spend $600 with Canton now than to source a replacement engine and then spend $600 with Canton.
FWIW, my good friend and the builder of my C4 setup used to be the chief technician at a (at the time) big performance shop. He did a number of builds for people, and they had issues with Canton pans way too often. He used and recommended Kevko, which is what's on my car.
Why don't you try a Canton "Accu-sump" Oil Accumulators? They will supply oil pressure when the pressure drops inside your engine due to turns or hard braking. They also do a awesome job of priming the engine with lubrication prior to start-up.
I have seen them used on several road race cars for that specific purpose. They will hold an additional 2-3 quarts of oil and store it while the engine is off. The engine lubrication pump pushes the oil back into the Accu-Sump and it come back out to help whenever it is needed. I have seen them used with and without the electronic control.
We used a Moroso 8 quart pan with crankshaft scraper and trap doors on my 427 BB when building it for the second time. The extra oil was only a problem one time and that was when I took a cold engine on the interstate prior to the oil warming up. It pumped most of the oil to the top of the motor and it was so thick it would not flow fast enough. After that experience I now wait several minutes and want to see heat on my gauges before I go to higher engine speeds on interstates.
The inside of my 427 Engine Block was painted with Glyptal to make the oil flow back to the pan easier. It seals the pores of the inside of the engine block and helps the oil return to the oil sump where it belongs. That is a trick used by lots of folks in the older days. After having the engine block baked and cleaned completely the inside of the block was prepped and painted. The guy who helped me build this engine used to build Can Am Race cars and worked with Porsche Racing for a while in the mid 1960's on their race team. He had a lot of experience squeezing more power out of any engine he built. I was very fortunate to learn from him!
I have a Moroso, 7 litre baffled oil pan on my C4 and it works very nice. For the money its well worth it. My stock oil pan was allowing drops in oil pressure on sharp turns in autocross, road racing would be worse...
I'd say baffled pan and an accusump will be a good setup for road race.
I ran an Accusump on my Brand D road race car as it originally ran an in-line 6 with a shallow oil pan and needed the help. It was difficult to build an oil pan adequate to keep oil at the pickup. It starved for oil on left turns as the engine is canted 30° to the right and oil would climb the right side of the engine. The Accusump didn't keep the engine happy.
I ran an Accusump on my Brand D road race car as it originally ran an in-line 6 with a shallow oil pan and needed the help. It was difficult to build an oil pan adequate to keep oil at the pickup. It starved for oil on left turns as the engine is canted 30° to the right and oil would climb the right side of the engine. The Accusump didn't keep the engine happy.
That sucks!
Did also have the oil return holes opened up in the engine also?
I opened up all the oil retrun holes and smoothed the areas around them in my heads and engine at the same time as I did the pan and have never had an issue and I have 315 rival S tires on all 4 corners and a pretty tricked out suspension...But if your pushing it that hard and pulling some major cornering G's maybe going to a full on dry sump setup is your only option especially if hapoen to have slicks on your car.
That picture is from when I road raced a 1966 Dodge Dart. This was long enough ago that I ran 225/50R15 Kumho V700 Victoracers. The 225 slant six is a solid lifter engine and doesn't put all that much oil into the cylinder head. The top end oiling is metered through the rear cam journal to a passage that feeds the cylinder head and rocker shaft. The oil coming out of the rockers flows down hill to the right and into the lifter galley which has good sized drain holes.
Those engine parts look nasty! I only know of one person who actually held several NHRA records in a Dodge Dart slant 6 racing back in the 1960-70's.
How did you use the accusump on the Dodge? The little solenoid Canton makes to control the oil is expensive, My mechanic friend suggested we use one on the engine with it having a simple 12 volt solenoid, discharge the oil before starting and then let the engine keep it full like an expansion tank on the oil system.
I have been tempted to install a remote reservoir for the C4 PS system as the folks who rebuild these parts have made it clear that HEAT is the killer in PS systems. Our expensive rack and pinions will last a lot longer with cooler fluid temperatures. I am not sure which bright eyed engineer came up with a plastic reservoir for the PS fluid. It does not help get rid of the heat in the PS fluid and blocks cooling air heading for the engine's left hand exhaust manifold. I want a metal reservoir well located to get rid of the excess heat on the power steering systems
Yes, I road raced a Dodge Dart. So did Bob Tullius in the 1966 Trans Am.
My Accusump was connected to a 3/8-NPT port on the delivery side of the oil pump which is bolted to the outside of the engine. The problem with that is you can push oil back into the filter and the postmortem showed a distressed anti-drainback valve. A different filter mount and a check valve would have been a good to keep the oil flowing towards the bearings. I did this when I swapped in a V8. The accumulator itself was on the transmission tunnel behind the shifter. I had a manual ball valve for control.
Thanks for this info by the way would the 85 need an upgraded pan for this track
I just want to run some friendly laps but I too am concerned about the long curves. When my pan was off it looked
like it was baffled.
Thx
Thanks for this info by the way would the 85 need an upgraded pan for this track
I just want to run some friendly laps but I too am concerned about the long curves. When my pan was off it looked
like it was baffled.
Thx
An April invitation to Willow Springs is what has me working on the car. If you're on street tires and not pushing the car hard you're likely fine with the stock oil pan. I ran there 10 years ago in something a bit slower than my Corvette and didn't have any trouble. This time I expect to be pushing the limit with big R-compound tires and so I'm going with a Kevko oil pan. The Kevko, Moroso road race and Canton pans all appear to be constructed very similarly in the sump area. The differences appear to be in the windage tray, scrapers and probably the trap doors. It's tough to see what's what inside the pan as the pictures are all shown with the windage tray installed.
I am concerned about having a bit of fun and starving the engine of oil. I have toyo 888's. I will be watching.
Once I autocrossed my '76 Plymouth Volare I knew I was sucking air as the lifters were rattling when I came into the stop box. What have you been doing to make use of the R888s?
Great info. I Am still preparing car . The 888's have saved me when I need to dodge things on the 405. Great on windy roads too.
I also like the look of them.
11-14-2019, 08:14 PM
Do I need a Canton oil pan?
