Since finishing my Rush about 5 years ago the car has always suffered from oil surge so I couldn’t ever really give it full beans. Amongst other mods (like the custom plenum) I shortened the oil pan so the engine would fit below the bonnet line without any bulges or scoops. The shortened pan has meant the sump part of it was so shallow that the oil easily ran out of it and to the back meaning little or no (!) oil pressure, there was little space to fit a baffle set-up and I actually wanted the challenge of building a dry sump set-up.
There is little or no useful information that tells you how to build a dry sump system from scratch so after a lot of research a few emails to various companies gleaning information from here and there and a couple of wise words from skyshack on here, a lot of guesswork, a lot of head scratching, a million mugs of tea, lots of adjustments and mind changes I have finally managed to cobble something together that satisfies my needs.
I’ve been working on this in the background and between other projects (eg the daft S15.3 project) for an embarrassingly long time now…but finally it is done and the CA18 in my Rush is running with a dry sump set-up
All fittings are Earls or AN style with braided hose. The system takes about ~9 litres of oil. I’m running a Weaver brothers 3 stage pump through -12 scavenge lines with -10 feed line. The pump is run by a gilmer style belt, via custom modified crank pulley at about half engine speed. It is mounted with a custom bracket using the air-con compressor mount holes on the block. I run the scavenge to tank line through a 16 row cooler and the feed line goes via a remote filter head and then straight into the block where the OEM oil cooler/filter assembly normally sits, the block has been modified slightly to take the fitting. The tank has tangential return and has been heavily modified to fit in the tiny amount of space that I had available with tabs and brackets welded on for mounting. It is baffled and can be split for cleaning.
It's cost me more than I anticipated but I now hope to have eliminated the surge !
Will do full write-up when I get the motivation and the time…but here's some pics at various stages of the build and install, when the intercooler is fitted and the radiator and various guide plates I have you can hardly see any of the good stuff I've managed to allow just enough space to get access to the top of the tank to check the oil level.