318 Oil Pressure drops on left handers on Road Courses

[96Formula6sp]

Hey everyone, We road race a 318 in 24 Hour of Lemons. However this year with our new engine that is much faster than the older one plus much wider 275 tires I have noticed a major drop in oil pressure in left hand corners. Enough that its becoming a problem of 20psi around 3500rpm. I now need to wait before I can get back on the gas or I risk engine damage. Caught me going to 4k rpm before noticing the oil pressure was not going up. As soon as the straights came up oil pressure jumps right up. Right hand corners are fine and oil pressure is right where it needs to be. Two gauges did the same readings.

The engine is a basic LA 318. We have one of the older Mopar Performance windage trays in the car. Our current oil pan is stock. We had it off and decided to measure how much higher we could go before oil would hit the crank. Adding it in we can get another qt of oil. Checked the oil pan pickup and its level with the pan at the correct distance. This is a 72 Coronet so it has the smaller car pan.

Anybody else do any road racing. I know there are some E body guys in stuff like SVRA. But I do not know any of them. We are looking into doing the Milodon 31590. But its been on back order now for over a year.

Any tips or tricks to do?

 

[vance.dykes]

He will have to do some baffling in the pan to keep the oil around the sump the other choice is you go with a dry sub system which is what most Road Race do because of the cornering involved and a dry sump will never leave the oil low on oil pressure you should also have an accumulator for safety reasons just like this

 

[RR Fan Dan]

Try Peter at Bergman auto. He might be able to find you the pro touring Milodon pan. He’s one of sponsors. He just hooked me up with that same pan for my 440.

 

[Bird 426]

I have a Milodon road race pan on my '69 Hemi, for ground clearance, not road racing! Just looked, Milodon doesn't offer one for the small block. Maybe give them a call and see if they could make one. The pan has 6 chambers with hinged doors to block and open when cornering or stop and acceleration. I removed my side to side doors.

 

[toolmanmike]

Oil pan. One designed for left and right turns.

 

[j-c-c-62]

I have a Milodon road race pan on my '69 Hemi, for ground clearance, not road racing! Just looked, Milodon doesn't offer one for the small block. Maybe give them a call and see if they could make one. The pan has 6 chambers with hinged doors to block and open when cornering or stop and acceleration. I removed my side to side doors.

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I personally can see no advantage in removing side doors, even in acceleration, actually I can see a few negatives, first being is making the assumption there are no windage forces at play side to side when accelerating.

 

[dvw]

Read this post here. My bet is this would be a good start.
DIY Small Block oil pan baffle - repurposing BB Truck oil pans!
Doug

 

[j-c-c-62]

Read this post here. My bet is this would be a good start.
DIY Small Block oil pan baffle - repurposing BB Truck oil pans!
Doug

As interesting as the fabrication skills are in the link, my concern is anything static that traps oil below a baffle, also traps oil above, and not sure there is a real gain to be had, IMO.

 

[Geoff 2]

Post #2.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

What about an oil accumulator that fills when you have pressure in the straights and then dumps to maintain pressure when you are in a left turn? Is there enough time for it to recharged before the next left?

 

[Kern Dog]

Looking at the stock mid sump and even the rear sump LA and 5.2/5.9 oil pans, you can immediately see that there is room for improvement.
Years back I took the oil pan off of a Honda 1.5 inline four and was impressed with the design. The oil pickup was almost completely surrounded by a baffle to minimize sloshing. Something like that would help the LA series pans.
I don't know the proper terminology but while the factory LA windage tray does a good job of keeping oil off of the counterweights of the crank, it looks like it offers zero help to keep oil from moving around.

 

[Mopar Miki]

Kevko Pan, Accusump, jomar oil filter
1st place to find wear from low oil pressure in the turn is at the rocker arm & push rod
Experience posted not seat of the pants conjecture