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Has ANYONE ever done this before to a F head ???
Regards
Tony G
Jakarta , Indonesia
Hi Tony,
I did something similar on a supercharged L134 in my CJ2a. I didn't
go to a full dry sump, since my concern was to have oil in the
bearings and especially in the compressor bearings BEFORE the engine
turned over on start up or during shutdown in the case of oil pump
failure. I used two fuel oil transfer pumps that I got on the surplus
market ( Surplus Center, I think...? ), but instead of having them run
constantly the scavenge pump is trigged by a fluid level switch in the
tank and the pressure pump is triggered by a pressure switch set to
turn on the pump any time the oil pressure drops below 20 psi. The
advantage is that it only runs as needed and I never start on an
unoiled engine.
The layout is as you suggest with the intake mounted at the lowest
level of the oil pan ( it's independent of the engines oil pickup ),
the scavenge pump then feeds a spin on oil filter which empties into a
5 quart tank mounted on the firewall where the oil bath air cleaner
used to be. The pressure pump feeds the main oil gallery through a
fitting on the front of the engine where clean out plug was. I used
a capacitance based fluid level sensor in the oil tank and took my
pressure signal from a conventional oil pressure sending unit that I
calibrated before installation ( That is I tested a bunch of them on
a running engine until they had an hour of running time and then
mapped them against a lab grade pressure sensor, mucho overkill, but
I'm an engineer! ). The system is controlled by a modified Megasquirt
EFI computer which also runs the fuel injection and compressor drive.
You could simplify my setup by using an old carb float to push a micro
switch to control the scavenge pump on the model of a toilet tank
valve or maybe two of them one to turn the pump on at half full and
another to turn the pump off when the tank is full. Likewise you
could use two pressure senders with one to turn the pressure pump off
or even better, if you can build electronic projects use a timer to
turn the pressure pump off a minute or two after the engine reaches 20
psi.
To me it's a worthwhile endeavor just for the peace of mind in never
seeing the oil pressure drop at idle!
Sorry for the long post.
Curt
