I have a 2 quart Accusump system installed on my Acura Integra. I prefilled the air side to 60psi thinking that this would make it so that the unit would only fill up the canister with oil when engine oil pressure was above 60psi. Conversely I figured if pressure ever dropped below 60psi (when it wasn't suppose to) the Accusump would then provide me with 60psi of emergency oil relief. In reality the Accusump does "appear" to fill the canister but when the oil pick sucks air the Accusump seems to only provide a couple seconds at most of additinal oil at 60psi confirmed via my oil pressure gauge (yes I'm driving HARD in a turn and looking at my oil pressure gauge! ). I recently went to the Accusump webpage and saw on their installation instructions PDF that you're only suppose to prefill the canister with 7-10psi??? I can fully understand that with only that much air pressure on the back of the Accusump piston that the oil reserve is going to last a LOT longer, however won't it only provide around 10psi of oil pressure then? That would clearly not be enough to keep the motor in VTEC and save an engine from a spun rod bearing at 8000+ RPM. I've spun two rod bearings now so I know from experience.

 

Okay I just figured out how to do a search on the archives and I found multiple threads on this subject and it's obvious that my issue is simply too much pre-filled air pressure. I will change it to 7-10psi. I understand that the Accusump will keep the same pressure that the engine oil pump created at the time the engine is shutoff (if you close the valve first) however the lingering question still remains is what pressure will the Accusump provide my engine with? Since the air is compressed quite a bit when the canister is full and piston is fully compressed I can see it having a good 60-80 psi of oil pressure *initially*, but towards the end of the piston travel and when the oil is almost empty from the canister, would it not only be providing 7-10psi?



Modified by Tage Evanson at 4:19 PM 7/19/2005

 

Not exactly on topic, but you might consider baffles for your oil pan.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RotorGene &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not exactly on topic, but you might consider baffles for your oil pan.</TD></TR></TABLE><TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tage Evanson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've tried a 5 quart aftermarket oil pan which didn't work at all. I've added baffles to my stock oil pan which helped but still wasn't enough so I added a 2 quart Accusump system and it's still not enough. So with this build I'm going to try a different baffled oil pan again and if there's any hint of oil pressure loss I'm going to do a dry sump system.</TD></TR></TABLE> http://www.azsolo2.com/forums/...e5b0d
There's no way you could have known that, of course. Tage is damn skilled at blowing up motors .

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tage Evanson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Okay I just figured out how to do a search on the archives and I found multiple threads on this subject and it's obvious that my issue is simply too much pre-filled air pressure. I will change it to 7-10psi. I understand that the Accusump will keep the same pressure that the engine oil pump created at the time the engine is shutoff (if you close the valve first) however the lingering question still remains is what pressure will the Accusump provide my engine with? Since the air is compressed quite a bit when the canister is full and piston is fully compressed I can see it having a good 60-80 psi of oil pressure *initially*, but towards the end of the piston travel and when the oil is almost empty from the canister, would it not only be providing 7-10psi?

Modified by Tage Evanson at 4:19 PM 7/19/2005</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think I know your issues

1) When you are prefilling it, the canister and the air are cold. Now assumming it is not pressureized by the oil, the heating alone will increase the pressure.

2) reducing the space for the air (when pumping in oil) will increase the pressure of the air. I don't really feel like doing the math but your probably only able to get maybe 10% of the accusumps volume filled with oil before the air pressure equalizes with the oil pressure.

But you probably figured that out by now.

 

Yeah that's exactly what I figured out. I simply had way too much pre-air pressure in the Accusump for any oil to actually be stored. This explains why it didn't seem like the Accusump was working/helping (because it wasn't! ).

However, I think my oiling problems are coming from excessive crankcase pressure causing all the oil to hang out in the head/valve cover area and not drain back to the crankcase. The motor is a resleeved GSR with an LS crank and 85mm pistons (2.0L) running around 9000 RPM so there's considerably more windage than a stock 1.8L running at 8000 RPM. I've done an aftermarket breather tank (Endyn) with hoses running off the back of the block plugs which replace the stock breather box. The drain of the breather/catch can is plumbed directly back to the oil pan. I also have a 2nd breather tank with two hoses plumbed into the front of the valve cover just behind the valve cover baffles. This breather tank is also plumbed directly back to the oil pan as well. I know crankcase pressure is an issue with high performance Honda motors such as mine but though that my dual breather setups would be adequate to solve the issue. The only thing left I'm thinking that my 2nd breather tank is not large enough as it's a very small (maybe 8-10 oz) with hoses coming off the valve cover about the same size as the stock PVC hose. I'm using an oil mini air filter on top and the return line is only 1/4". Perhaps I need to upgrade the breather tank and lines to another Endyn/Moroso unit?

Any input appreciated. Thx!

 

If you where using the moroso oil pan, that is worthless.

Try this in addition perhaps?



And z10 engineering offers a drp sump system that may be a better value than Moroso.

http://www.z10eng.com

 

just an idea, get an old MAP sensor and plumb it to your engine block, hook it to an analog voltmeter (and of course power & ground) and have a passenger watch the meter during a WOT redline pull, just too see what kind of case pressures you are getting. This way you can see if the changes are really improvements. You can also use this to see if the valve cover or block has a higher pressure.


I was just thinking about this, The way the stock PCV system is designed, air flows in through the valve cover, down into the case, and out through a catch can, then into the intake mani through the valve.

What may be more effective for you is to install the PCV (or twin PCV's) on the valve cover with filters and no catch can's. The PCV is a check valve in addition to a vacuum sensitive valve, so no oil should be vented there. Then run a large catch can on the block (or connected to the block, with some type of vacuum source. A exhaust venturi would work well, or a small vacuum pump.

 

I tried the Z10 oil pan and it was worthless and I heard the same thing about the Moroso. That Canton pan does look like a really good design though. I may try that one.

Measuring the vacuum (or pressure) is also an excellent idea. Might be cheaper to do that with a regular ol' gauge vs a MAP sensor but the principle would be the same and would narrow down the issue vs me just guessing.

I already have a breather tank with an open air filter mounted on top and dual lines plumbed to the valve cover. I also have a 1 quart catch can on the block with an open filter (but it is not hooked up to a vacuum source, so that could be an add).

 

If case pressure is causing your problems, it is almost certainly due to the lack of a vacuum source.

 

I have got me a Canton pan, here's a couple of pics I took of it :

http://www.we-todd-did-racing....D.jpg

http://www.we-todd-did-racing....=.jpg

http://www.we-todd-did-racing....=.jpg

http://www.we-todd-did-racing....=.jpg

 

I'd love to check out those pics you took but the links aren't working for me. In fact the entire DNS (i.e. http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com) seems to be down.

 

Yup, just have patience and it will be back up again sometime, this happens now and then.