<VV> Oil Pressure and High Volume Pumps

[Dave Keillor]

The person who built my engine used a high volume oil pump and a high
pressure spring.  Here's what he replied when I asked him about it:

"The crank was done with a special relief of the rod & main bearing
radius at the journals and all oil holes were fluted. As far as the high
volume oil pump on a built up street engine, I prefer it for the
increased oil flow and cooling affect it has on the bearings. The lead
babbit and copper interface on the bearing has a reduced risk of
becoming "unclad " and reduce smearing of the material and helps keep
the bearing tolerances on the compression stroke reducing premature
bearing wear."

Dave Keillor

-----Original Message-----
From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
[mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of
jvhroberts at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:26 PM
To: ricknorris at suddenlink.net; kenpepke at juno.com;
virtualvairs at corvair.org
Subject: Re: <VV> Oil Pressure


 IMHO, higher oil pressure carries with it very few sins. The amount of
HP it takes to drive the pump is really pretty small, so, no biggie
there.

However, higher pressure does get you higher oil flow, and that's good
for a lot of reasons. It allows the oil to carry away more heat, since
the flow is greater. The higher flow that comes with higher pressure
also makes oil coolers work better, although, you will see a rise in oil
temperature simply because the higher oil flow also carries away more
heat from the engine. 

Obviously, getting to the point where you're blowing gaskets, oil
filters, stripping the drive gears, etc., is a bad thing, but that's
probably well north of 100 PSI. 

I don't get the foaming thing, since most of that is caused by windage,
etc. But that's just me!

 

John Roberts