Ecotec V6 Dry sump

[Gareth]

I came across these factory type sump gaskets with built in windage tray, ordered one for testing.

Would probably work on buick too.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/FEL-OS30767R

[vlad01]

Those are for the US FWD ecotecs, they actually have the sump part in the middle, somewhat to the rear of the engine unlike ours with it right up front. So the tray might not clear the limited space at the rear of our sumps and there is the whole pickup tube location situation too.

Might be handy for your dry sump though it it clears the rear as mentioned.

They def won't fit Buick pre-eco though, the o ring placement is the same as our eco and therefore misses the block entirely in some spots on the Buick internally. Also one of the rear holes in in the wrong location for Buick but that is moddible, moddable?

But that said, an eco alloy sump will fit the Buick with some mods and deleting any gaskets entirely, and a light smear of sealant glues it straight to the block. Works amazingly well! I have not had one bit of issue on mine with the eco sump and has not had a single speck of oil weep or leak anywhere. That also stiffens the block better than having a gasket which allows some searing movement, which eventually = leak.

Here is the late model US sump I found a pic of.

Screenshot 2024-04-10 at 09-03-29 s-l1200.webp (WEBP Image 640 × 480 pixels).png (176.86 KiB) Viewed 425 times

[immortality]

Came across this relevant video, the guy in it is really goofy but some interesting and surprising results with the oil windage.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk7r0TL0Or4

I've watched a few of his videos, Definitely a interesting kinda guy.

I think what that shows is they lack oil/windage control. They need to strip the oil from the rotating assembly. They are band-aiding a oil control problem by running a larger volume of oil.

I remember many years go I wanted to test the brakes on the missus car and did it coming up our street and managed to brake hard enough to get oil surge and have the oil light come on. At the time the oil was at about the low mark on the dipstick. Fortunately I saw the low oil pressure light come on and I eased off the brakes fairly quickly so I don't think it did any long term damage.

It doesn't matter how much power you make if you tear up the motor doing it.

[vlad01]

Windage control for sure is an issue on that engine in the video, but also makes me wonder if there is so much oil in that engine, where does it all accumulate for the sump to empty? top end?

I've heard some people with later commodores have this oil pressure loss on braking but I personally never seen it and none of my cars have ever done it, even when I had only 2 and a bit L in the sump in the shitbox. I throw my cars around all the time and generally drive them hard and I have always wondered if I ever get any decent amount of oil accumulate up top or not, but evidence is saying no as I can hold the engine WOT at close to redline for a good 2-3 Km and never see any oiling issues, and rocker covers always look no different to when the car is just idling, damp with oil, but no pooling or anything like that.

What car was that in when you saw the oil pressure loss?

[immortality]

My low oil pressure was on our L67 VX Commodore. Our street is uphill so you can brake a lot harder without locking up than on a flat surface. I wanted to find the point the tires would loose grip and the ABS would kick in.

For the LS motors, I believe it's a design flaw in the block and it's something they worked to solve on the LSX engines. The problem as I understand it has to do with how the block and bottom end is formed. You have cross bolted solid mains caps that go all the way down to the sump between the sump rails that compartmentalise the bottom of the engine and doesn't allow the windage to dissipate. On the LSX blocks they have added "windows" or cut outs in the webbing to allow the air to move laterally across the bottom end.

The ecotec has cross bolted mains caps but they are not solid blocks like on the LS motors, so possibly suffers the same issue but not as bad as the LS. The older 3800 V6 motors wouldn't be anywhere as bad. I too never saw issues on my old VN driving it like I stole it. Always rock solid oil pressure.

Most likely a lot of that oil is literally attached to the crank spinning in the block and that is what is eating the power in those dyno runs, they are literally whipping up a oil storm.

Ideally on a high rpm motor you need some sort of crank scrapper to help separate the oil from the rotating assembly to get it down into the sump.

This dry sump conversion will solve all these issues.

[vlad01]

Interesting! I vaguely recall LS mentioned to have poor oil return but never took it seriously as it's suppose to be a enthusiast minded platform from the get go, so seem to be like a silly oversight.


The Holden v8 is bad with top end return, and I had a look at some heads and I see the issues people talk about, mostly comes down to the fact the heads don't have much if any angle and it also has deep oil pooling areas with drainage high up, so they tried to engineer these weird almost horizontal drainage ports to get the oil out but being almost horizontal relative to ground, the drainage is slow and would be an issue with cornering.

Other engine head designs are more angled for better intake port curve primarily, then the valves sit higher up and the casting as a result is much shallower for oil pooling and higher up, then the drainage holes are vertical to the deck or 45 deg relative to ground and also a lot shorter and deeper down compared to the rest of the pooling areas.

But I also heard that holden v8 have a lot more top end oil flow as well so it compounds.

[immortality]

Holden V8's have a very shallow valve angle, unlike the Chevy 23° stuff which makes the drain back better but worse valve to bore angle.

At the end of the day, I also don't think we are revving our engines high enough for windage to be a huge factor, it gets much worse the higher the RPM.

What RPM does Gareth turn on the race motor?

[Gareth]

Was limited to 7000, now aiming at 8000.

The rotating assy. is being balanced as we speak, that will ultimately dictate how high it can go.

[immortality]

That is certainly getting up there but then you are fixing all the evils with the dry sump.

[vlad01]

Was interested to see if there are any high capacity v6 sumps anywhere and I found this mob.

Not only do they mod v6 sumps to have scrapers and baffles, more oil etc... In the gallery I found a dry sump for ecotec

http://www.asroilpans.com/holden-gallery.html