FA20 Engine Oiling, Bearings, and Starvation

[D K]

I was at that stage long time ago.....

Ive been talking to some of the EJ pioneers to see what I can come up with as far as internal oiling mods.
Micah was saying something about drilling the crank to aid flow (not cross drilling) and of course shimming the pumps.

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by D K

and of course shimming the pumps.

Are you referring to shimming the pressure relieve valve to increase pressure?

[Element Tuning]

Originally Posted by cdrazic93

Would the oil be thin enough at those temps to cause Laminar flow or Turbulent flow from the pump?

I don't think the temperatures are excessive for a track car with the cooler but just not cool enough to keep viscosity where we want it given the pump volume limitations.

Now at 8500+ RPM there is a chance the the rapid pressure drop we see is due to pump cavitation but we can't fix that internally. It's best at that point to work on the external side of things so you can remove the air etc out of the oil.

I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve I may try before sorting the external pump/dry sump.

[Element Tuning]

Originally Posted by D K

I was at that stage long time ago.....

Ive been talking to some of the EJ pioneers to see what I can come up with as far as internal oiling mods.
Micah was saying something about drilling the crank to aid flow (not cross drilling) and of course shimming the pumps.

Oh boy, let us know how that works out for you. Do yourself a favor and either pay someone that knows how and has proven to have a solution, wait for an external oiling system, or make your own dry sump. Any of the above will be cheaper than the, "sorry I thought that would have worked, because it works on the EJ." Nothing about the EJ applies to this motor and we build hundreds of EJ motors (that's our primary business).

At least with the money and time we've spent, we have the opportunity to profit from it or at least gain sponsorships with racing. Individuals just shouldn't burden themselves with the costs associated with testing, failure, testing, failure, testing, failure, success, and "wow I could have just bought a GTR."

As a business owner I'm starting to doubt the validity of the platform and it's not because I don't think it's good. I mean we are winning races and setting track records but the costs to do so are very high. Expensive engine builds, expensive oiling systems, and now transmissions so I'm concerned about the average BRZ/FRS owner having the funds or desire to build a beast.

To build our race car in retail dollars would be $68,900. That doesn't count R&D, just what it would cost to build a replica. That's a big chunk of money for an FRS that is reliable to race at 400 whp and needs a new transmission every 5 race days. Drop a good transmission in there and we're pushing $76k. With that said we are beating Z06 race cars that I'm sure cost $100k but still, it's a Scion with 400 hp. A C5 Z06 with half that money in upgrades or even a Trans AM 2 build is right there. Now another few thousand and we'll be racing a 600 whp car and kicking everyone's butt

People without that budget will still benefit a ton from what we are doing at a reasonable cost as we've developed a brake system with another manufacturer, we're testing and running off the shelf parts from our sponsors like Perrin and proven their worth, along with our own engines. The problem is that if people don't want to patronize these sponsor's products, our own, or the platform in general we'll stop R&D and be racing Mustang's next season. LOL!

[Element Tuning]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Are you referring to shimming the pressure relieve valve to increase pressure?

That doesn't increase volume. Pressure relief is already set around 80 psi so this has no bearing on pressure when you're racing around at 50 psi. Shimming is only effective when your oil pump has excess volume.

Has anyone tried that aftermarket pump gear? I suspect it does little but I would like to know. If you guys remember I tested the 14mm (+2mm) pump gear with the traditional pump profile and that still wasn't good enough. Now we can make that work on the 2015 WRX FA20T but it's not the case on the BRZ FA due to the differences in the cam timing references. Hmmm I know someone good at welding.

[D K]

Originally Posted by Element Tuning

Oh boy, let us know how that works out for you. Do yourself a favor and either pay someone that knows how and has proven to have a solution, wait for an external oiling system, or make your own smissions so LOL!

I should have clarified....

I would never use something just because it worked on another platform here on the FA20.

I was referring to getting some info from guys that have done a lot of work on the EJ's and now are doing FA20's.

I may have considered to have you build my engine, but we are too far along now. Engine is almost done, so I have to do what I can to protect the engine internally.
Ther is a pnp dry sump kit on the way but like the trans - it will take time.
Besides, im more interested in protecting and enhancing the existing oiling setup so that the race engine will at least survive for a little bit.
I wouldnt trust those rockers past 7500 much anyway.....

[EAGLE5]

What does it take to make a <2800lbs, 4-seat sports car? Designing parts appropriate to not much more than the stock power level. Some pigs are better suited to flying than others.

[puma]

well i sure hope you guys are going to keep this discussion alive because i hope something is going to come out of it.

on an other note, @Element Tuning, i know you were toying around with the abs not being very good, i don't know if you have seen the brake setup we did but this might be something interesting for your race car. We haven't had the chance to test it yet but pretty sure it is going to be good.

[Element Tuning]

Originally Posted by puma

well i sure hope you guys are going to keep this discussion alive because i hope something is going to come out of it.

on an other note, @Element Tuning, i know you were toying around with the abs not being very good, i don't know if you have seen the brake setup we did but this might be something interesting for your race car. We haven't had the chance to test it yet but pretty sure it is going to be good.

We had a company custom design a front and rear brake kit to solve the issues we were having. The best brakes I have ever run in a race car! Problem solved and we retained the ABS.


They wanted us to hold off of marketing it until they finish their product website and vendor status.

[serialk11r]

That FA20 pump gear looks super weird! The little "holes" would seem to allow a little leakage of oil back and effectively lower the displacement by a tiny bit. It might be that the discharge port is shaped kind of weird and at high rpm it would generate more pressure, but that makes no sense, if anything you want higher pump displacement per revolution at lower rpm to generate the necessary pressure quickly and not the other way around. That's how all the variable displacement pumps work these days, they open an internal valve to reduce the flow at high rpm without incurring the losses of the traditional relief valve so that you can keep the pressure at say 60psi as if the pump were spinning slower.

Maybe it's just a way for Subaru to make a lower flow oil pump from an existing design. The turbo FA20 probably needs more than just 14mm/12mm =1.166 times more flow than the NA engine.

[puma]

Originally Posted by Element Tuning

We had a company custom design a front and rear brake kit to solve the issues we were having. The best brakes I have ever run in a race car! Problem solved and we retained the ABS.


They wanted us to hold off of marketing it until they finish their product website and vendor status.

with only a big brake kit, that's it?

[rice_classic]

Is the pump not a positive displacement pump? Or that it's just that low of an output?

On the Honda engines I play with the pumps are PD and system pressure managed by the by the PRV. When we add an oil cooler we lose 5-10psi of pressure which we can compensate for by running very thick oil (not good for flow) or retain desire flow by shimming the PRV which bumps our pressure by 10psi allowing us to continue running a 0w-30 in our race engines. Increasing pump pressure increases flow, but increasing viscosity to increase pressure does not increase flow. (I understand that statement to be mostly true)

I guess the question is: has anyone actually tried putting a small shim on the oil PRV spring and measure the difference in oil system pressure at running temp?

[P86RAVES]

Originally Posted by Element Tuning

As a business owner I'm starting to doubt the validity of the platform and it's not because I don't think it's good.

...The problem is that if people don't want to patronize these sponsor's products, our own, or the platform in general we'll stop R&D and be racing Mustang's next season. LOL!

Could you expound on that a little? This perspective is interesting.

I've resolved myself to never modify this car so long as I own it. Until I owned it I was in love with the car, but after driving it about and window planning a modification route.... I kinda despise it because it's not at all what I was hoping it would be.

Do you think within the next 5 years the money:performance will improve, or do you think shops will start treating it like an RX-8?

[Element Tuning]

Originally Posted by puma

with only a big brake kit, that's it?

No it's not that simple as the front and rear rotor diameters along with piston surface areas had to be reconfigured to give us the balance we needed and that the OEM system could deal with. OEM bias is off the chart wrong for racing.