FA20 Engine Oiling, Bearings, and Starvation

[FunnyGopher]

What a good thread this is. So much information, thank you so much!

[Williampreza]

Has anyone seen the most recent Engine Masters episode regarding oiling (How Oil Kills Power)? Apparently they resolved high rpm oil pressure loss (and corresponding power loss) by simply reducing the overall volume of oil in the system. Of course it's more complicated than that, but I thought I'd throw this in to get this discussion going again.

I realize that most of us have chalked up high rpm oil pressure loss to cavitation on the part of the oil pump. Just want to confirm that turbulence due to excess windage at high rpm has been ruled out. Pls no flames. Honest question. Thx!

Here's a link to the video. It's a pay site so it may do you no good until they post the vid on YouTube.

https://www.motortrendondemand.com/d...r-/0_iqs4grke/

@

[FunnyGopher]

Originally Posted by Williampreza

Here's a link to the video. It's a pay site so it may do you no good until they post the vid on YouTube.

https://www.motortrendondemand.com/d...r-/0_iqs4grke/

T-minus 1 month until I can watch this video...

[Surok]

Thanks for making this thread.

[ermax]

Originally Posted by Nigelr32

No way. I have no idea when the change was made, I just noticed the difference on a rebuild of my 2012 engine. I believe there were issues with the cam timing? This may be something to do with it??
I have a 2012 and a 2014, this is how I found the difference. The earlier engines have a different part no for left and right rocker posts, later they're the same.





Heres a pic of the left and right next to each other..

Are you sure this changed on the 2014? I ask because I am doing a rebuild right now on my early MY2013 and noticed bank1 has the small holes under the rockers and bank2 has the big holes. Did they go to small holes on both banks on the 2014?

[Ongky]

Originally Posted by ermax

Are you sure this changed on the 2014? I ask because I am doing a rebuild right now on my early MY2013 and noticed bank1 has the small holes under the rockers and bank2 has the big holes. Did they go to small holes on both banks on the 2014?

I am rebuild MY 2013 and when i bought from Subaru... The size is different

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

[JimmyMac]

Anyone know if it's ok to use the newer smaller hole rocker posts on the older 2012~13 heads?

[steve99]

Originally Posted by JimmyMac

Anyone know if it's ok to use the newer smaller hole rocker posts on the older 2012~13 heads?

Their is whole set of updated parts, valves rocker etc you must use all new parts as slightly different sizes do not mix and match old and upgrade parts

[ermax]

Originally Posted by Ongky

I am rebuild MY 2013 and when i bought from Subaru... The size is different

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

I just looked at the Toyota parts page and it looks like when you order the pivots for a 2013, both banks have the same part number now. The parts page shows this pivot fits all years, even 2017+. I am guessing they are compatible without swapping out more parts. I am curious if this would help bias some pressure to the bottom end. Surely there is a reason they made this change.

https://parts.toyota.com/p/Scion_201...U00306140.html

[Hags86]

There are references in this thread to the Reimax pump not helping solve the oil pressure at high revs/temps.

Reimax make two models. One is a drop in replacement and the other has a thicker gear, a spacer and needs some machine work done to the timing case cover. This is apparently a higher capacity pump. Which one is being referring to in this thread?

Has anyone put in oil restrictors in the heads to ensure the crank gets priority?

[Kiske]

Originally Posted by Hags86

Reimax make two models. One is a drop in replacement and the other has a thicker gear, a spacer and needs some machine work done to the timing case cover. This is apparently a higher capacity pump. Which one is being referring to in this thread?
priority?

All most all in this thread that bought the Reimax replacement gears didn't follow through with results. IIRC only the replacement oil gears were available at the time. Element Tuning used the oil pump and timing cover from the FA20DIT (15+ WRX) and ruled it out due to issues with tuning.

[DocWalt]

There are new Reimax gears, I only know of one person that's going to actually use them properly though: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13157

[Element Tuning]

Been a long time guys since I've been on any forums but I'll revisit some results.

The Remax gear was worse than OEM for us. The design resulted in lower oil pressure in the peak TQ areas and that's bad on turbocharged cars as the oil pressure did not ramp fast enough. I have one for sale if anyone else's testing showed differently. The calculations originally done did not factor in the OEM gear having nearly two pumps per peak tooth profile.

The FA20DIT cover has a larger oil pump (I believe it was 14mm vs 12mm of the BRZ). Because we have the Nemesis EMS stand-alone we could run that pump on our race car even thought the cam position sensors are not in the same location. Testing showed an improvement but it wasn't enough to solve the lower than ideal pressure on a boosted and raced BRZ FRS.

We also tried external dry sump pressure stages from in 3 different sizes and from 2 different manufactures. I was optimistic we could put together something to sell people that would be a bolt on solution. Frankly that project left me scratching my head as we weren't able to produce more pressure than we got from our Pro Comp engines using the oem pump.

Ultimately our Pro Comp FA20 long block build was the only thing that worked. I really wanted to go back and try and figure out why the external pressure stage that was a fail but unfortunately the FRS/BRZ aftermarket is a little soft on $$$$ mods. We wanted to do more for the platform but honestly without you guys spending the big bucks it's just not possible or I should say it doesn't make financial sense. There are plenty of products I had designed to further improve oil pressure, performance and reliability from the FA20 heads but market research pulled us into the Monster86 LS swap stuff.

It's a little harder to develop and market products as our race car is sporting a twin turbo V8 now I loved my FA race car setup though but that transmission was just such a hold back. There are two game changer items however I may release but I'm waiting to see what Subaru does with the STi engines.

Thanks,
Phil Grabow

[Element Tuning]

Originally Posted by ermax

I just looked at the Toyota parts page and it looks like when you order the pivots for a 2013, both banks have the same part number now. The parts page shows this pivot fits all years, even 2017+. I am guessing they are compatible without swapping out more parts. I am curious if this would help bias some pressure to the bottom end. Surely there is a reason they made this change.

https://parts.toyota.com/p/Scion_201...U00306140.html

Be careful here as there was a complete redesign I believe to help with the rocker ejection that included longer valve stems, different rockers, and different pivots. I believe that was in an effort to change the rocker angle and to provide adequate oil volume to the pivot in an effort to reduce the rockers ejecting. It does appear the newer FA motors don't seem to have a consistent rocker ejection issue.

Our engine packages boost oil pressure by 20+ psi so we just aren't seeing the rockers eject on these older FA20s but I suspect "volume" to the pivot helps. On the new engines with the redesigned pivots there's no change in overall oil pressure unfortunately from what we've seen. I suspect this is the same for most as people are still sending us engines with spun rod bearings on the BRZ and also the WRX FA20DIT.