Agree. Mine came pressurized when I bought it and hasn't lost any pressure while sitting a couple months waiting for the install.

I plan to do exactly that after we assemble it to ensure it holds pressure and that I didn't screw something up. :)

It's not Barbecue -- you'll be fine.....



:action-smiley-027: :action-smiley-027:

:catfight: :bitchslap:

I found a Moroso filter adapter that is clockable and will thread onto the oil filter fitting on the pan without hitting the pan itself. The only concern I have is that now the filter sits 13/4" lower now...which I didn't think would be an issue, but now the bottom of the filter sits almost as low as the bottom of the bell housing....even lower that the headers and the sub cross member. Would it be possible to smack the filter on a course curb, speed bump, etc and rip it open or damage it? Basically the bottom of the filter is now lower than the bottom of the pan...which is nearly at the same level as the sub cross member.

First piece of the puzzle: the Accusump itself. Ron ordered me one that was disassembled so that I could have the cylinder powder coated. Turns out it's so simple that I could have just taken it apart myself. But oh well...

I put it back together today and aired it up to check for leaks. We'll see where the pressure is in a couple of days. I'll work on mounting it next week.

Monday I'll be working on the new lines and the wiring to control the EPC.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps0fzp547z.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...pss0w45a1x.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps4f8htcvy.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psogzdbxfn.jpg

I'm sorry -- I got a good laugh at this. It's a tube (cylinder) with a piston.... air on one side - oil on the other... how hard can this be?? LOL

Yeah yeah smart ass... ;) Makes complete sense now that I've seen what it does. I expected a spring or something else inside there, but it's about as simple as can be!

The hardest part was building a tool to allow me to turn the ends and tighten them. :)

This video below is a MOROSO unit but is great to show how the system works. It's super simple and not that Complicated.

That was informative.

It's interesting that the air pressure gauge didn't appear to be working for the first half of the video.

The one thing I would hope is that it wouldn't be discharging that frequently while in use in my application. I think their setup was using a manual valve and not the electric pressure control valve though. Thus the accumulator was constantly matching the pump pressure. In my case, I expect that discharge to only start after the pressure drops below the 37# threshold...

I didn't know how they worked either.... but once explained it sure seems simple enough. I thought maybe it was a bladder type deal inside the cylinder.

The pre-charge sets the "spring rate" and the air inside the backside of the piston behaves as the spring. That would be one way of thinking of it.

Hydraulic accumulators come in two basic varieties. Bladder and piston type. I am not aware of one marketed for auto racing that uses a bladder. The bladder type fits the description of what you were envisioning.

In hydraulic system design I have used these to act in the same way a capacitor behaves in an electric circuit. It absorbs spikes and allows the pressure to vary less in a system that has a large volume actuator.

It's funny -- because my Lotus 2 Eleven came with the accusump... and I have one in the Mustang (manual valve). Everyone on the Lotus forums talks about taking them off because the "leak" or they have some other BS issue with them or because they add weight.....

On PT forums - we're just now "discovering" them. This and dry $ump$.....

So I de-bodied the Lotus on Friday because I want to do some minor things on it... and my buddy that also owns one - came to the shop on Saturday so I could show him how easy this was to do.... (his is brand new). And we discussed the Accusump. He is thinking he'll take his off and toss it as an unnecessary part since he's going to upgrade from the stock pan and go with the baffled version I have.... But I said I use mine as a pre-oiler in both cars because they sit so long between running them etc.

Personally -- I think they're good insurance... and that if a guy is going to seriously TRACK his car - they're cheap and easy to add and just might save you an expensive rebuild.

I agree, unless you are looking for the last .01 percent in performance. I'll take the $300 insurance policy on my $25,000 engine, regardless of the oil pan.

^^FACT^^

Improved racing now makes a trap-door baffled pan for the Holley-302 pan that wasn't available 6 months ago when I installed my motor. I'll be dropping my sub to pull my motor and install one of those too now!

Good insurance.


Here's what people kind of don't think about --- we start putting big ass wide super sticky tires on these cars -- thus RAISING the G's forces they can pull in the corners.... Then we do out and begin to track them - pushing the boundries way beyond the "street" scene... and that oil is just begging to climb the pan and block walls ---- and leave the pick up dry as a bone....

I put a 7 quart road race pan with trap doors on mine 11 years ago when the only sticky tires it had were on the rear! Now, with RT615k tires and the bigger brakes the car is going back together with an accumulator also.

Some people claim that the sump shouldn't be mounted in a horizontal position. I think this video proves that wrong.

I was worried about that also and was trying to determine how to mount it on a little bit of an angle. It looks like if there is little to no air in the tank initially (which should be the case if there is a precharge) then air shouldn't be a problem...

I assume they purged the lines before the video. In my mind the lines would be the only issue with air in the tank. Canton told me to cycle it many times before hitting the track so it burps all the air out. I assume the long drive to Dallas will take care of that for you.

I found an extensive write up, geared towards offroad but is extremely informative.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/Oiling/

Now that I have the car driving and have put miles on it, I thought I would circle back and update this thread. I ended up plumbing my system exactly like the picture in the first post with 1 exception. I added the pressure switch to the port in the front side of the LS block instead of in the external oil filter mount. It turned out to be a cleaner solution and would detect pressure loss that much earlier.

I needed an adapter to mount the pressure switch to the block, which I found by Googling the sizes I needed (cannot remember the exact part right now, but I think it was an M16 to 1/4" NPT adapter). You also need a crush washer for the metric side to seal the threads.

I mounted the Accusump itself on my front sway bar cross tube. This was a perfect spot, but it required an exact fit between my fan shroud and my crank pulley. I was concerned about making a bracket to clamp onto the tube which we could then attach the Accusump to. Some time Googling turned up these:

https://www.alabamaindustrialproduct...ducts/1290.jpg

http://alabamaindustrialproducts.com..._Hardware.html

They make them in aluminum instead of the plastic, and that's what I used. They are big, as you can see below, and they aren't going anywhere. They offer a much smaller size, but I was concerned about the 1/4" bolts being strong enough to hold the weight. They probably would have been fine. Here's the ones I purchased:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...pstarn78t6.jpg

The nice thing about the heavier duty clamp is that the plate on the end was thick enough to drill and tap to screw the bolts into to hold the billet clamps in place. That saved an extra piece for that purpose.

Here is a shot of it in place before clocking it at the correct angle:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psbboodabk.jpg

With both clamps in place, I could sit the unit down for the first time to gauge how it would fit. Note the fan shroud was not in place when I did this:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psmtprh5bw.jpg

Here's a good shot of the plumbing at the end of the Accusump. You can see all the lines I have running through this area, it gets crowded:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psu46n074v.jpg

Next I reinstalled the shroud. This is when things got tight. The billet touched the fan, and if I clocked it to clear, it almost touched the PS pulley. I wanted to be able to remove and replace the PS pulley without having to remove the Accusump, so I ended up clearancing the billet bracket about 3/8", which was ok because there is a lot of meat there.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psk3bj6rbp.jpg

Here you can see at the other end how close the gauge comes to the radiator hose. I screwed up initially and clocked things such that I couldn't get to the shraeder valve, so we had to turn it and adjust.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psbotpmq8v.jpg

That's it. I wired the 1 wire from the relay inside the car to the solenoid valve, then the other side of the valve to the pressure switch, and finally the other side of the pressure switch to ground. When both the relay is on (which supplies 12V to the valve) and the pressure switch is active (making a ground connection), the valve will open and release the oil pressure into the system.

Right now I have the Holley controlling the relay to enable it before start (which acts as a pre-luber), and any time RPM is above 1800. The latter was somewhat arbitrary based on my previous oil pressure levels. Now, with the new pump, I have higher idle pressure. High enough in fact that I probably could have just wired the valve to ignition voltage. Oh well, it's wired in now...

Seems to be functioning as it's supposed to, except as I will discuss in part 2 of this post...

During my research into adding the Accusump, I ran across some complaints from people who had the blow-off valve open and spew oil into their engine compartments. It seems that the common problem for them was the air pressure gauge was allowing pressure to escape, and when oil pressure built, it would cause the piston to slap the back face, sending a shock wave of pressure back through the tube and causing the blow off valve to open.

Well, it took me about 1 week before this happened. I managed to make my trip to Dallas for the GG event without any problems. But the day after I got back, at some point I lost air pressure and sure enough, ended up with an mess of oil. I noticed this because the oil pressure gauge didn't show the pre-lube before start once. So I got to clean up that mess.

For the moment, I have removed the Canton gauge and plugged the hole. Since I have the USCA event this weekend, I wanted to make sure I didn't chance any more problems. This works, I just pressurized the air side and used a tire pressure gauge to bleed down to the pressure I wanted. I can see the pre-lube working, the only downside is that I cannot look and see the pressure on the gauge face right now.

I will order some kind of replacement gauge next week and replace the apparently crappy Canton one. I could run a remote gauge somewhere, but I like the location down low and out of the way. So I'll get a similar replacement gauge.

Cleaning up oil mist isn't a lot of fun...

Hey Carbuff. I just ordered the 3 quart accusump for my 70 Trans Am. This past weekend at the track I saw the oil pressure drop down to 5 pounds when braking from 130 mph on the straight away. That's way to low. Luckily the engine is ok.

Regarding the accusump pressure gauge "popping off" what was your permanent solution?

-John

I hope everything is ok on the inside. Take a close look at your oil during the next change...

Regarding the gauge / blowoff valve problem, for the USCA event I just removed the gauge and plugged the hole. I used a tire pressure gauge to set the precharge. I've purchased a new gauge which I hope will be of better quality that I will be installing on Wednesday. I'll know if it works better by Friday I hope since I have a track day that day. I'll be keeping a close eye on the gauge between runs...

I wonder if you can incorporate a fluid isolater like the fuel gauge set ups or just go with an electric gauge. It would be a shame to lose an engine because of something that is supposed to protect it.

I would pull the oil filter off, cut it open and inspect it for debris. The gauge is an average of the actual pressure, my guess is it went to 0. Imho, if your pressure is going down under braking.... you need a better pan/baffling in addition to the accusump.

I think I could, but I believe the real problem was just a cheap gauge. But you just gave me an idea to consider. I have a couple of free inputs on my Holley HP EFI controller. I'm not sure if I can do this, but I may see if I can add a pressure sensor on the air side of the Accusump where the gauge attaches and then wire that into the Holley. I have a warning light on my dash, so I believe I could turn that on if the Accusump air pressure went to 0.

Update?
 

Brian ... good reading here, did you replace the gauge yet? Also, how did you keep the air side of the canister higher than the oil side with those clamps you installed on the sway bar?

Michael

I haven't had the chance to replace the plug with the new gauge yet. Hope to do that soon. I have several small, and some not-so-small, projects to do, and this is one of them. I can tell whether it is holding pressure by turning the switch on and watching for pressure before turning the engine over, and so far it's ok.

Regarding the canister itself, I didn't make an effort to keep the air side higher. Right or wrong, I have it effectively parallel to the ground. I could have staggered it a little, perhaps by milling the billet clamps. That would have put the canister in a bind though if I had done much, so there likely would have been no advantage to doing so.

But so far it seems to be working ok.

Good thread guys. My brother is running the Moroso one in his drift car with an LS1. I've done a few autocross events with it now and a couple of times have forgotten to open the valve. Maybe the electric solenoid to turn it on would be the way to go.

After watching that video I'm a little confused. I think I've been told differently about how to use them and when. I've been told to start the car with the valve closed then open when engine is running before going out on the track then close just before shutting off to avoid starting the car again with a sump full of oil. Did that guy in the video open the valve before "starting" the car then once the engine got pressure the oil flowed back into the accumulator?

I was of the understanding that you open the valve, extra oil goes into your engine and stayed there until you shut the valve. Appears they work a bit differently.

Am I right in thinking I could have one in my Camaro, that will see more street than track turn on with the key and it will really only do it's job on the track?

Cheers

Luke

The purpose of opening the valve before starting the engine is to pre-lube everything before you spin the crank. That helps prevent metal on bearing friction and wear.

If the oil pump is creating a higher pressure than the electric pressure valve is set for, then you will be refilling the cylinder until it achieves a balance in the system.

So in my case, my idle pressure is about 38# hot. That's just over the 36# pressure valve in my system, but a little close for comfort. So I use my Holley to send +12V to the valve above 1400 rpm where I know pressure is above 40#. That guarantees the cylinder is not discharging during normal driving. As I rev the motor, and the pressure goes higher, more pressure builds up in the cylinder but is not discharged until the pressure is below 36#.

Now, in your case if you are using a manual valve, that is different I believe. You could still open the valve to prelube, but you might not want it open all the time in day to day driving. I really don't know what the best answer is in that situation...