FA20 Engine Oiling, Bearings, and Starvation

[EAGLE5]

You're at the high oil mark?

[ajc209]

Originally Posted by jsimon7777

You're at the high oil mark?

I was at the half mark to begin with. The extra 0.4 liters would be over the max. Total oil added since it was fitted yestersay is 5.8 liters.

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[Lee]

Originally Posted by ajc209

Well to say I am pissed off is an understatement. The Moroso baffle is junk. I added 0.4 litres of oil and went for a drive.

I was able to observe a pressure drop under hard acceleration throught the gears AND under heavy braking after a long period of acceleration.

Serves me right for fitting something with no data to back up the claims.

I will be calling Mark and Adrian to let them know my findings.

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Where are you reading pressure from? And is there a chance the sensor could be touching something in the engine bay causing the intermittent fault?

I have one waiting to go on, your post makes me think to leave it out...

[ajc209]

Hi Lee,

Im measuring pressure at the top gallery next to the ac. Its been fitted for quite a while.

I have considered what could be causing the issue but its so repeatable. 40mph foot down... When I reach about 80-90mph I get a suddend drop then recovery like an oscillation in oil pressure. Obviously I back off and it stabilises. I can make it happen under braking after acceleration too. The guage seems to be working fine and ive done a few track days.

My suspicion is that oil is pooling at the top plate and not returning to the bottom of the sump.

I will talk to Adrian tomorrow. At this point im looking for a refund tbh.

[Lee]

Let me know how you get on.
I have a racersX sump at home aswell but doubt it will clear my manifold.

[Spartarus]

*big huge sigh*

The stock setup has no need for extra baffling under any reasonable or realistic set of conditions. especially not under street conditions. It is well-designed and sufficiently baffled.

I suspect if you remove that Moroso baffle, your issues will vanish.

I think I might remember hearing a piece of wisdom on this subject a few hundred thousand times... It starts off "if it ain't broke....

I'm still waiting for somebody to throw up numbers on that Reimax pump. I never heard back from Element on how that went... I've been on the road for a while now, and If I ever make it home and finish moving, I might be forced to get the numbers myself. I'll admit though, I'm losing interest in trying to save the stock engine and transmission. Every once in a while I think I hear a nearby dumpster calling for my FA20, and that F*cking Aisin box it's bolted to.

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[EAGLE5]

An oil pan baffle won't fix pressure problems for massive power,. It might help people running a stock engine with aero and slicks. Sounds like the baffle he got ain't so hot.

I prefer the car with stock or close to stock power and enjoy the easy limits and control of stock tires.

[ajc209]

Originally Posted by Spartarus

*big huge sigh*

The stock setup has no need for extra baffling under any reasonable or realistic set of conditions. especially not under street conditions. It is well-designed and sufficiently baffled.

I suspect if you remove that Moroso baffle, your issues will vanish.

I was planning on fitting semi slicks to my track day rims, and potentially downforce in the future.

[ajc209]

Fensport are looking into the issue.

[Spartarus]

Originally Posted by ajc209

I was planning on fitting semi slicks to my track day rims, and potentially downforce in the future.

Element is on non-dot slicks (325's I think, but either way, big enough to warrant widebody fenders) with serious downforce (over 1000 pounds of aero. downforce) and even they haven't reported having a starvation issue. That's cornering over 1 g, running brakes that will rip your face off, and accelerating with enough power to trash a stock transmission every 5 race days.

Until somebody actually reports oil starvation induced by acceleration/deceleration/cornering that can't be attributed to anything else, I will continue to maintain that the stock baffling is just fine, and needs no improvement.

I will concede that Element is using a huge accumulator, which may mask starvation issues, but they started using that because of high-rpm pressure drop, not starvation.

The words "over-engineering" and "cheap insurance" have been used to justify more time, money, and effort wasted on useless equipment than all the other bullsh*t marketing and salesmanship on the planet combined. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There's plenty of actual broke sh*t on this car that needs fixing. The two biggest problems on this car still have no solution. This thread used to be about fixing one of those.

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[ChrisD]

Originally Posted by Spartarus

Element is on non-dot slicks (290's I think, but either way, big enough to warrant widebody fenders) with serious downforce (over 1000 pounds of aero. downforce) and even they haven't reported having a starvation issue. That's cornering over 1 g, running brakes that will rip your face off, and accelerating with enough power to trash a stock transmission every 5 race days.

Until somebody actually reports oil starvation induced by acceleration/deceleration/cornering that can't be attributed to anything else, I will continue to maintain that the stock baffling is just fine, and needs no improvement.

.

Isn't the entire point of this thread that Element is experiencing oil starvation? That's what I got from the title (which has the word starvation in it) and the first few pages of posts.

Also, do you really need to keep shitting on people for just trying to avoid problems? Surely its better to try and be pro-active and get baffled sumps to try help avoid starvation issues, rather than just assuming oh yeah the stock oil pan on this low powered slippery car will be fine when I stick loads of power and really grippy tyres on it.

[Spartarus]

Originally Posted by ChrisD

Isn't the entire point of this thread that Element is experiencing oil starvation? That's what I got from the title (which has the word starvation in it) and the first few pages of posts.

Also, do you really need to keep shitting on people for just trying to avoid problems? Surely its better to try and be pro-active and get baffled sumps to try help avoid starvation issues, rather than just assuming oh yeah the stock oil pan on this low powered slippery car will be fine when I stick loads of power and really grippy tyres on it.

Ok, fair enough. Perhaps I don't need to be so aggressive about saying it. I'm frustrated.

The thread was initiated with "starved bearings, no idea why, suspect G forces"

Let me summarize the entire thread so you don't have to make any assumptions based on the first few pages. Approximately in order, from memory.

-Main Bearings fine.
-Rod bearings failed
-Seems always to be rod bearing 2 or 3
-Why is it always #2 or 3 rod bearing?
-Oh, #3 main feeds both 2 and 3 rod bearing
-Oil pressure insufficient at high RPM under any conditions, repeatable on dyno
-pickup starvation ruled out
-redline raised to 9000
-Serious oil pressure drop found above ~8200
-FA20 oil system analyzed, major differences from EJ include feeding heads in paralell to mains, not in series, strange pump gear profile, 2-stage pressure relief valve
-larger FA20DIT oil pump installed, results not favorable.
-Accusump installed
-"secret sauce" oil system mods performed
-reliability on track achieved. (without F*cking around with baffling)

Remaining issues: transmission durability, oil pressure (accusump is admittedly a band-aid) Dry sump and bigger oil pump pursued as options. Reimax pump proposed based on volume calculations. No results on either proposition yet.

Thread then sidetracked again by people who didn't bother to read the whole thread. Still no results. Hence frustration

"surely it's better to be proactive" is a logical assumption, but in this case, the data doesn't support it. Quite the opposite in fact. I'm not assuming "yeah it'll be fine" I'm saying that other people have tested that assumption, found it to be true, and moved on to other problems.
That's why we have a forum; so you don't have to figure out every aspect of the car by trial and error. Other people have already done that for you and written pages and pages about it. I get that people are impatient and nobody has the time to read the whole damn forum. That's why I'm constantly re-posting various bits of data when questions come up, in hopes that eventually the problems will become common knowledge.. There are a few other people hanging around who do the same thing. Otherwise the collective memory is short, and we will spend the rest of time continuously re-hashing the same set of non-issues, and never get anywhere.

TL : DR I post data, I don't make assumptions. If you want to refute it, do it with data, not assumptions. Even if your assumptions seem logical, there's a good chance they've already been addressed, and found to be meritless. In the rare case that I am making an assumption, I'll make it abundantly clear, and I'll pose it as a question, not an argument. If you've got data that refutes mine, good on you, you win, I'll change my position.

Arguing without data is what children and politicians do

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[HUNTERANGEL121]

I may be commenting to early. Still on page 11(Tapatalk) reading this thread. But has anyone mentioned air flow?

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[ChrisD]

Originally Posted by Spartarus

Ok, fair enough. Perhaps I don't need to be so aggressive about saying it. I'm frustrated.

The thread was initiated with "starved bearings, no idea why, suspect G forces"

Let me summarize the entire thread so you don't have to make any assumptions based on the first few pages. Approximately in order, from memory
...

Thread then sidetracked again by people who didn't bother to read the whole thread. Still no results. Hence frustration

Thanks, that was informative. The thread is 28 pages long now, so I don't think you can be too mad at people for not reading every single post. I did read quite a bit of it (and some other threads on the subject) a while ago, which led me to ordering the Reimax pump gear. That turned up a few days ago and I'll be getting it installed when we take the engine out to get new pistons and rods installed (probably in about a month). Not sure if I'll really be able to tell you how much it helps, as I don't have any problems at the moment... but like I said, I'd rather try and be proactive and do what I can to avoid problems in the first place.

EDIT: Just seen your edit to your post. I wasn't suggesting that YOU were assuming it'll be fine, I was just saying I don't think you should get mad at other people for trying to fix problems instead of just assuming everything will be fine. In this case yeah maybe it looks like baffled oil pans aren't going to help this problem, but I just thought your original post was a little harsh on people for giving them a try.