Originally Posted by freq

Me too but I havent welded in a baffle yet either, maybe I'll stay on street tires too.

Originally Posted by Chibo

I'm starting to get paranoid reading this thread after a heavy day at Chuckwalla today.

When you say 'shut off' how long are you talking? Like a soft hiccup or soft feel of traction control intervening for less than a second when driving out of a longer corner hard?

Originally Posted by LeonV

That reminds me of how mine felt the day it gave up. I felt it especially when coming out of the esses at Sonoma (WOT >80mph right hander) I would feel a momentary loss of power, not a full cut, definitely less than a second. If your motor isn't making funny sounds (mine did) take an oil sample and send it in before running it again. You may be able to catch it early, before doing damage.

Originally Posted by anorexicpoodle

I had a canton pan and after a season of datalogging pressures and temps against a OEM pan with a moroso weld in baffle i swapped back to the OEM pan with the weld in baffle, same pressure lower temps due to aluminum pan.

where are you pulling your pressure data relative to the accusump?

I would delete the accusump on the next motor.

Here is my logic:

Accusumps work great in a very specific situation, and that is if you have an insufficient pan baffle, in long corners it will keep the galleys full of oil, BUT as soon as pickup pressure rises above that of the accusump the accusump will actually take pressure away from the motor to refill itself. I have even seen extreme cases where a 3qt accusump fully discharges, and upon recharge starves the motor sufficiently to cause failure, however if you are taking your pressure readings adjacent to the accusump you will never actually see the pressure drop because of the accusump maintaining pressure at the measuring point.

Not saying that there may not have been some other issue, but after years of racing in lemons with an accusump (not S2000 obviously) it never actually saved a motor, usually just delayed the time it took to blow it up.

FWIW there is plenty of data supporting these cars being bulletproof on very sticky rubber with just a pan baffle and big radiator (no oil cooler).

Originally Posted by s2000sccaracer

Thanks to all who responded. What I do not understand is that the old engine that I put back in the car also has a Canton pan (an early one from the pre-buy) and it does not have oil pressure issues. The same Accusump is used with both engines. I have not had the early Canton pan off that "old" engine since it was installed, but maybe I will pull it to compare it to see if they made changes with the later ones. Oil pressure sensor is in the oil filter sandwich plate in the galley before the filter. Accusump is after the filter. Both engines use the same sandwich plates.

When I built the car in 2011, I installed a stock pan with a welded in baffle. When I pulled that pan to install the Canton pan, I found the welded-in baffle had cracked and was loose. Was glad that I found it before a worse failure.

I am using Hoosier S80 Road Race slicks, but without being able to use any aero dynamic additions (aside from an air dam), my corning forces are not going to be as high and those cars with aero.

Originally Posted by anorexicpoodle

I would suggest moving the oil pressure sender for your data to the oil galley near the vtec solenoid. Where you have it now you're really just measuring the accusump pressure not the galley pressure. At least then youll see if there is a meaningful drop in galley pressure.

Originally Posted by anorexicpoodle

I would suggest moving the oil pressure sender for your data to the oil galley near the vtec solenoid. Where you have it now you're really just measuring the accusump pressure not the galley pressure. At least then youll see if there is a meaningful drop in galley pressure.

Originally Posted by s2000sccaracer

I raced last weekend in EP at the SCCA runoffs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was quite an event and spent over a week in Indy. I started 32nd out of 45 cars and finished 23rd. I had to race on my old spare engine. Swapping engines in the 95 degree temps in Indy was no fun, but it was either swap or go home.

The engine that I built for the runoffs made about 20 hp more than my old engine. It would run great for a couple of laps, but then it would start dying out in right hand turns, of which there were many, It was not a misfire, but rather almost like it was shutting off. I have a Canton baffled pan (as does my old engine) and an Accusump. Looking at the data logs, I saw that the oil pressure would drop after a couple laps. Pressure started out in the 75 to 90 psi range, but after it warmed up it was in the 40 to 60 range. Cornering did not change the pressure. I was thinking that the pressure was too low to keep the vtec engaged. I have a Haltech ECU and I do not think it uses the oil pressure switch. in one practice session I pitted to disconnect the auxiliary sensors from the Haltech, in case there was a problem with the 5 volt system (had a shorted/melted wire once before that cased a similar symptom). I went back out for a lap and it ran great - figured that I found the problem, only to have it act up again in the next session. I was only in pit for about 2 minutes. I did not log the vtec engagement at that time, but I do that now, but it the pressure was too low to keep it all engaged, I don't know if it would log that anyway. I drained the oil and saw some metal in the oil, thus decided to pull the engine.

I finished the tear down today and found the bearings worn. Checked the clearances with Plastigage and found rod bearing clearances about 0.0015". Plastigage it not the most accurate, but it at least gives a measurement for now. The rod side clearances are in the 0.013 to 0.014" range with new Pauter rods. That clearance is at higher than the 0.012" max for a new engine, but still below the 0.016" service limit. I am wondering if that was the issue?

My question for you all, is what am I missing? Each engine had it's own vtec solenoid system , TCT and valve train (I did not swap them between engines). Engine harness was swapped between engines. I still need to take a closer look at the rocker arm system to see if there is anything missing, but the vtec engaged fine on dyno and for 2 laps of each practice session. Wondering if too much oil was winding up in the rocker cover and not in the pan, but puke cans were all good. No external oil leaks and engine was not consuming oil. Oil filter head, sandwich plate, and cooler were shared between engines.

Oil pump was a used pump. I checked clearances before installing it and it was all good. On tear down, the oil pump pressure relief valve looked good.

I know that rod bearing clearances are usually the cause of low oil pressure, but I want to make sure that I am not missing another issue. I am open to suggestions.

Originally Posted by Mrsideways

Check for crank walk. My last motor (K series, but very similar bottom end) oddly had lower oil pressure out of no where. All bearings looked new. Found quiet a bit of crank walk. Still don't know the cause of the crank walk and wear on the thrust bearing. Haven't torn it that far down.

Originally Posted by Chibo

I'm starting to get paranoid reading this thread after a heavy day at Chuckwalla today.

When you say 'shut off' how long are you talking? Like a soft hiccup or soft feel of traction control intervening for less than a second when driving out of a longer corner hard?