Ecotec V6 Dry sump

[Gareth]

Now to start thinking about system design, 2 stage, 3 stage, pump... Do I polish the internal sump area? What size outlet fittings? -16 seems common. I recon while I'm at it I'll add a temp sensor so I can monitor oil temp better than external temp stickers. Should I run a cooler? I'll need a remote filter. What pulley ratio to run.

I like the Peterson tanks, but not sure on size yet - https://petersonfluidsys.com/tanks.html


Another consideration should also be that the sump will probably not give the same structure or stiffness to the bottom end (as it was designed to do) thoughts on this?..

[immortality]

How flash do you want it to be?

Drill and tap holes around the perimeter of the part you have cut out and bolt on a piece of plate or alternately weld it on, drill a couple of holes in the side and weld on some AN bungs to create suction ports. Turn it over and apply some of that diamond mesh to aid with windage and stripping oil from the rotating assembly and call it done.

edit:
Fit a oil temp gauge first, then decide later if you need a oil cooler, with the external pump, filter and tank it'll be easy to plumb in a cooler later if required. How many laps do you run? From what I have seen the V6 motors run quite high oil temps, warmer than I'd like on the street and it's something I see as a bit of a weakness on the ecotec motors, a couple of burnouts and they wipe out the bearings which is most likely due too cooking oil and loosing lubricity and oil pressure from to high oil temperatures.

[Gareth]

The majority of my racing is endurance racing, 100 laps is one of the big events, in last years 3 hour enduro I managed 235 laps...

[immortality]

Yeah, add a oil cooler

[vlad01]

With the dry sumps I have seen on these FH and other engines including LS, they normally have a baffle to kinda "scrape the windage", so like a preferential direction for the baffle over the top of the drainage. This also stops the windage from blowing the oil back up into the tornado that is the crank case.

The drainage should be level with respect to the ground, not the engine itself if you get what I mean, just to give the scavenging as equal distribution as possible for both acceleration and braking conditions. Thinking aloud here, but if one of the pumps isn't getting much oil it could wear it out quicker.


As for oil temp, I don't know exact range that is ideal but from general info about proper operating temps for low wear and best hp combo, 100c is what I seen most people aim for. Oil temps are mostly driven by oil pressure and engine rpm and doesn't really follow coolant temps as much as people would otherwise think.

So I agree, you will need to figure out if a cooler is needed or not.


That's very impressive the engine held up so well without failure or rebuilds in all that time.

As for the lifters and cam, Clive cams is back in operation so you can get something good and better suited for the engine of this calibre. The peak hp happed at 5K from the notes and photos I have, so 6500k floating is probably not surprising. So I really think given how angry you drive that thing, a bigger cam will def help!

The solid roller lifters I know that will work without oil loss from uncovered oil galleries with high confidence are the Johnson SBC mech roller lifters, but you will need to get them to make a custom set using those bodies in combo of LS tie bars to work in the eco lifter bore centers of 45mm. I literally found no lifters at all other that Johnson that don't have this oil loss issue in the V6, there are a few in hydraulic, but zero in mechanical roller other than the Johnson ones. But Johnson is literally considered No1 best by the GN guys anyway.

[immortality]

I was having a look back over some old stuff and my old VN would see oil temps around the 110°C when running a 82°C thermostat. Oil took a fair while longer to reach operating temp than the coolant did but this was just on the street cruising and a bit of spirited driving. I ran the ecotec oil pressure spring and was running a 10/15w-40 semi-synthetic type oil and of course I'm in NZ which has more mild ambient temps most of the time. Cold start idle would see ~80psi and running temp idle was around the ~40psi and a bit lower if you really got up it, I'd expect with you getting up it constantly you will see much higher oil temps.

I'm gonna fit a oil temp gauge on my VT shortly as I'm actually intrigued to see what it's normal operating temps are.

[Gareth]

I'm really keen to know what your results are.

The way I understand oil temp design is that engineers aim for 110 degrees cel. to burn off all moisture as engine oil is hygroscopic, moisture in oil becomes acidic.

This is an even bigger issue with alcohol/ethanol fuels like I run.

[Gareth]

found a very informative website on dry sump design considerations - https://www.drysump.com/index.php/faq-s

[immortality]

Some good info there.

[immortality]

I'm really keen to know what your results are.

The way I understand oil temp design is that engineers aim for 110 degrees cel. to burn off all moisture as engine oil is hygroscopic, moisture in oil becomes acidic.

This is an even bigger issue with alcohol/ethanol fuels like I run.

I wonder how much difference ethanol makes to oil temps? How are your coolant temps?

I was under the impression 100°C was always the target as that is where moisture should burn off. Either way, 100-110° on the street is probably perfectly acceptable but I'd not want to go over that. It also depends on the oil you run. Mineral you'd not want to go much higher but synthetics can handle more heat but then I also read this recently,

I have an oil experience I'll share with 4 identically built Ecotec V6 engines racing at Phillip Island in 2007. 2 were on Mobil 1 15w50 full synthetic, one was on Castrol GP50 25w50 mineral oil and the other on Torco 20w50 mineral base racing oil. Each engine suffered oil surge under brakes and by the last race, both on Mobil 1 retired with spun big end bearings. The other 2 finished and the engine's sounded fine.

Stripping all 4 engines after the race meeting, the 2 on mineral oil had perfect crankshafts and no bearing fatigue whatsoever despite datalogging showing zero oil pressure under brakes the same as the 2 failed engines on Mobil 1. I'm not saying Mobil 1 is no good, but it's the reason I've never used a full synthetic in these engines since and typically use Castrol Edge 25w/50 mineral base oil that superseded the old GP50 with great results.

The engine failures weren't an oil brand and type issue per se, it was the absence of a gated oil baffle in the sump causing oil pressure loss. Nevertheless, with these engines, the mineral oil engines lived through zero oil pressure conditions undamaged and the synthetic oil engines didn't and failed.

Which leaves so many questions about ecotecs and synthetics?