Sump Baffling

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just wondering what people do with regards to sump baffling.

this year we are looking to use a low profile sump and are concerned that we may starve the engine of oil under sustained cornering.

has anyone tried baffling their sumps?
any hints/experience or photos you can share?
anyone blown an engine due to oil starvation?

thanks for your help

[zoomzoom]

just wondering what people do with regards to sump baffling.

this year we are looking to use a low profile sump and are concerned that we may starve the engine of oil under sustained cornering.

has anyone tried baffling their sumps?
any hints/experience or photos you can share?
anyone blown an engine due to oil starvation?

thanks for your help

[imajerk]

I've never seen a baffled sump... but I have seen very low profile dry sump that haven't had any problem on a lot of cars. I don't think it would matter as the oil doesn't just jump off all your moving components if you turn the car. I guess the only problem you would be having is if you're burning oil - then you'll have problemshttp://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

I don't know for sure... but maybe it could be earn you some design points.

Jerk.

[Dave Cook]

Honda F2's have a bad reputation for sloshing oil into all kinds of extra spaces and uncovering the pickup. We blew three engines at Cal Poly in 2000 figuring this out. We ended up with little swinging doors in the baffle that let oil in, but not out under cornering loads. Our pan was only an inch deep and a 2 quart accumulator only lasted to the second corner. This appears to be more of an F2 problem, apparently the clutch cover and alternator cover hold lots of oil when cornering.

People underestimate this problem in FSAE cars, but it you think about the traction circle and how the car is almost always accelerating in some direction in excess of 1 g, oil never really has a chance to get back to the middle of the pan, especially if you make the pan shallow and worse if the oil has nice big cavities to go hide. The better your car handles and your drivers push it, the worse this effect. Watch out for lots of circles on the skid pad when tuning.

Normal race cars are power limited and have nice long straights to recharge an accumulator. A dry sump is ideal, but the hinged and weighted baffle doors in addition to the accumulator took care of our problem.

Dave Cook

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dave can you please explain how the oil accumulator is plumbed into your engine, I'm not familiar with how such a device works.

Is it like a big reservoir after the pump but before the engine, plumbed in via the filter/heat exchanger block?

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cool, those accumsumps sound like a real good idea particularly if you think you'll be pulling big g's. its also pretty cheap insurance for your engine at $170. pity you guys burnt 3 enignes before you got onto them.

would you recommend the 2qrt or 3qrt version? i'm thinking the 3.

did you get electric shutoff valve? pretty expensive at $100.

is there anyway to track the accumulator volume via a gauage or something? how did you know yours was empty by the 2nd corner... just oil pressure?

[imajerk]

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ian.crocker/sumps/baffle.html

Rover V8 baffled sump example.

Best Regards,

John Meszaros & Bunny
Monash FSAE NA
http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae