Engine and Transmission Tech

Hey guy's I'm new here so first let me introduce myself. My name is Danny, 40 years old and I recently bought a DAX Rush, lotus seven replica which I completely stripped. I'm in the process of completely rebuilding it and I am currently working on rebuilding the rover v8 crossbolted engine which I would like to build to fast road mild race specs. I'm Dutch so please bare with my English. I'm quiet new with the Rover engine so my question might sound "stupid" again bare with me :)

I recently bought a dry sump system, fabricated by John Eales, on ebay for a good price and would like to fit it to my engine. I added a picture which I hope will show so you guy's can see what I bought.

The problem I have is that I have no clue about how and where to add the oil feed. As you can see on the picture is that some of the oil passages (I assume) are blocked off with some kind of wax. The oilpump gears are removed and is blocked off with an aluminum plate. So I'm not able to add the oil feed line from the pump to that area.

Where and how should I fit the oil feed line?

Excuse me for my ignorance and I hope you guy's can help me further

Have you tried contacting John Eales? I have some pictures of dry sumps installed but as far as particulars on oil passeges you will need to talk to someone who has this system installed al ready. I am in the process of doing the same as you but the cost is keeping me away from it. I might go to a baffled sump pan instead.

You can avoid the front cover oil passages entirely and plumb the pressure line direct to the engine oil galleys if you like. The small block and big block Buick engines had a threaded hole in the block next to the front cover that was used for a pressure switch or sender and I see no reason the same hole couldn't be tapped into the Rover block. Also for a long time an extra line was run to the rear of the block and tied into the oil galley there to equalize oil pressure front to rear. Try to minimize 90* bends.

Jim

Thanks you both.

Sound easy Jim but drilling a hole in my block gives me a bit of a nervous feeling in my stomach though.
Can you point me to some pictures or something?

Danny

One of my "backburner" projects is to make a true "side-oiler", cross bolted Rover. IE. bolting a sealed "oil log", encapsulating the left side , main cross bolts. They would perhaps be larger in dia., uprated material and "hollow". Can you see it? Ends of hollow bolts would intersect, low angle feed holes in main caps= better oil wedging effect.Inherant Rover oiling problems should be reduced. Putting the oil pick-up in , side of pan shortens and straightens the tract. One could then "fill" the empty port in block to further strenghen this area. I will try to post pic's of the "Huffaker" set-up. "Because So Much Is Riding On Your Oil",roverman.

Here is the sender hole. You would not get enough flow using the factory size, it should be enlarged to at least a 3/8" NPT which should be fine if used with the rear feed, or perhaps 1/2" NPT if not.





Below is the sender location transposed to the 215 block, shown by the red circle. The blue arrow marks the pick-up port.



The rear feed is typically run to the left hand galley at the rear, but could be run to both oil galleys if you preferred. This needs to be done with highly reliable components as a leak here means pulling the tranny and flywheel to fix.



There are additional oiling modifications which really should be made to any of these engines during rebuild, but at the very least, the TA-Performance double groove cam bearings are an excellent idea as they effectively transfer oil to the opposite lifter galley and place the oil hole for the cam bearings in a more appropriate location. Use of those, the front/rear block oiling and dry sump or external oil pump should be all that is needed for almost any engine.

Art, I sometimes wonder if you shouldn't just go ahead and design an engine from scratch. You have so many good ideas on how to improve what we already have, with the right combination I'd imagine you could come up with a design which is very good indeed.

Jim

Jim, Perhaps, but then for me, it would'nt be hot rodding. I feel the late Rover block has a lot of "potential" as yet to be exploited and is dirt- cheap, initially. Building a block from scratch, let alone an engine for production, is a formidable task. Just ask Mike at TA. What hurts the BOR's the most is lack of air flow and help is on the way. May we all accellerate at our chosen speed, roveman.

Why is it good to transfer oil from one side to the other? Is it feeding one side to the other?

Nic, the best point to oil the cam bearings is at approximately 3 o'clock facing the front of the engine (hence
Art's desire to oil the mains through the cross bolts on the left side) and an old mod was to drill new holes from that position into the driver's side galley, increasing the demand from that galley. (done in my 340 thread if you go back a ways) Which is all fine except that there isn't a direct connection from the right side to the left and the oil that does get there has to go around the cam bearings to do it. This is done by using a front cam bearing with a groove in it (OEM) or by plumbing in an external line. There's not enough room to do that between the block and the timing gear so the line to the back of the block was the solution. You could also plumb into the pasenger's side galley at the rear if you wanted to equalize pressure from the front to the rear of the block and this was sometimes done because Buick engines tended to starve the #7 rod journal. (why #7 and not #8 I'm not certain)

Since that time it has been found that the real problem was starvation of the pump due to an undersized suction line and too many sharp bends and passage restrictions at the front of the engine. Once it became common to enlarge the suction line to 9/16 or 5/8" and use a 5/8" pick-up, port the pump housing and front cover, use a booster plate to control pump cavity flex and set close pump tolerances, bearing failures from oil starvation became rather rare. The TA double groove cam bearing set includes back side grooves for oil transfer to the opposite galley, making the external line redundant.

Jim

I didn't drill out the suction port. Should I? What about bypassing the internal line with an external braided -8 line instead? Would that be better?I was thinking about fabricating a larger sump anyway. I could fabricate a pick up into it... Then is it worthwhile to add that cross over either way? Are you saying the rear main feeds through the cam?

First, no the mains do not feed through the cam, they feed off the lifter galley on the pump side. The opposite lifter galley is the one that has a contorted feed and the usual problems there surface as lifter tap on that side and possible cam bearing wear (which then causes a loss of oil pressure and CAN cause the rod and main bearings to go south). Plumbing oil to that galley reduces the flow past the cam and should provide more balanced lubrication towards the rear of the engine and better oiling of the cam bearings. Plumbing into the near side galley (close to pump) will balance front/rear oiling of the mains and rods, but this is really only a problem if pressure cannot be maintained at 10psi/1000 rpm.

The pick-up galley can be drilled on a complete engine without fear of contamination. Best practice is to mask off the front and bottom of the engine and drill with the engine in normal orientation on an engine stand, using a piloted drill (to prevent wandering and break-out) and using a shop vac on the opposite end of the passage to suck out the chips. If desired, a ball end burr can be used to smooth the junction where the pick-up meets the horizontal passage. The vertical hole is drilled in similar fashion by rotating the engine around so any chips fall away from the crankcase. You can go as large as 5/8" if you feel after inspection that there is enough wall thickness. This, use of the 5/8" (late V6) pick-up available from TA Performance, Posten, etc. and porting of the oil pump passages should do the trick for you, and external lines of all types have largely been relegated to dry sump systems only.

Jim

Thanks Jim. What's special about a piloted drill? Where do you buy one?

The pilot keeps the drill in the center of the hole so that it can't wander off to one side and break out. Here's one potential source but I haven't dealt with them. A search should bring up others:
[www.mist-tools.com]
Also it needs to be a long shank drill. If you have access to a lathe it isn't terribly difficult to modify a standard drill bit to do the job, undoubtedly for much less money. (If you call them could you let us know their price?)

I have one I could loan you, nothing fancy and I believe it's the 9/16" size, but that is an improvement.

Jim

Sweet. I'll call them later today. I'll get back to you on your drill. I think I'll take you up on the offer. I'll PM you.

Thanks Jim!

Danny-You might want to contact these guys. They are very knowledgeable about dry sumps

[www.drysump.com]

Nic, the bit went out today so you should get it the first of the week.

Jim

Great! Thanks Jim. I had a call to Mist but I didn't get it done in time. I'll try again tomorrow.

I got a hold of Mist tool and sent an email off to them about fabbing up some pilot drills. I used your drill as a basis for a 9/16 or 5/8 version. We'll see how it comes out.

SO I probably should have measured the hole in the block before assuming it was 1/2" I went to use the drill you sent and discovered it was already 5/8 dia. LOL!

Thanks for the bit either way. It's on the way back. BTW Gunpowder rd.!? COol.

That was too easy.

Jim