Dry sumping a mini A-series

Dry sumping a mini A-series

Author
Discussion

annodomini2

Original Poster:

6,913 posts

258 months

Wednesday 25th March 2009
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Following on from the discussion in Engines and Drivetrain.

Just a thought I had as to whether this has been attempted at all and with any success?

My thought goes along the lines of for very high perfomance A series engines:

1. In order to extract that little bit extra

2. Possibly improve drivetrain reliability through seperate lubrication

What are other peoples knowledge and thoughts on this?

guru_1071

2,768 posts

241 months

Wednesday 25th March 2009
quotequote all
the problem is that with dry sumping a mini you will remove the oil from the gearbox!

ive seen minis that run 'semi' dry sump sytems where they run an external oil tank so the engine, has, in affect double the oil - this tuns in conjunction with extra filers etc

most people now a days (with the better quality modern oils etc) jsut run a second remote oil filter to filter the oil both sides of the pump.

FWDRacer

3,564 posts

231 months

Wednesday 25th March 2009
quotequote all
Rich - Can this be pre-pump filter set-up be plumbed in on A+ units (simple on A-series it has boss on the oil gallery?)

Any further info?

guru_1071

2,768 posts

241 months

Wednesday 25th March 2009
quotequote all
FWDRacer said:
Rich - Can this be pre-pump filter set-up be plumbed in on A+ units (simple on A-series it has boss on the oil gallery?)

Any further info?
ive seen a few ways of doing it, my 8 port monster has the block drilled and tapped (like the old fj blocks), but ive also seen people block the oil pick up off, so the oil exits the pick up through the little metal plate that is normally a blank, goes through a filter, then back in.

i could maybe sort some pics if you want

FWDRacer

3,564 posts

231 months

Wednesday 25th March 2009
quotequote all
guru_1071 said:
i could maybe sort some pics if you want
Top Man...

Edited by FWDRacer on Wednesday 25th March 14:56

FWDRacer

3,564 posts

231 months

Wednesday 25th March 2009
quotequote all
guru_1071 said:
i could maybe sort some pics if you want
Top Man...

Edited by FWDRacer on Wednesday 25th March 14:57

Arkle

41 posts

212 months

Thursday 26th March 2009
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We dry sumped the A series in the 70's to stop oil surge when using a 16 valve head. Oil stayed in the head at high revs so the level in the sump was not high enough to allow pickup through the corners.( BL Metro 2wd Rallycross car). The std pump was used as the scavenge pump and the presure pump was driven off the helix gear on the camshaft where the mech fuel pump was. As we used a 16 valve head the cam only had to drive the oil pump so the profile didn't matter. The oil tank was in the back to help weight distribution (not good for traction though). We had to use large bore hose or the pump would cavitate when the oil was cold. Never had a gearbox or diff problem. Thats all I can remember!!

fastcarl

254 posts

227 months

Thursday 26th March 2009
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2 posts in 2 years arkle , you must elaborate on the spec of this car , as there were not many 16 valve a series cars about back then.iv'e heard of them but never seen one.


carl

Arkle

41 posts

212 months

Saturday 28th March 2009
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I'll Dig out some pics if I can find them. They'll need scaning as they will be quite old now, so it may take a while. One thing I do remember was the first time we tested the engine in a Mini at a Brands Indy winter test day, Ricardo Patrese was testing the gold Warsteiner Arrows for the first time at the same test day, it was snowy and we blew the engine up at the bottom of Paddock and he crashed big time on the entry to Clearways. If you can date when Patreses first drove that car it will date the start of our bespoke engine.

D900SP

458 posts

190 months

Tuesday 31st March 2009
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When I lived in the UK during the 70s, used to help prepare and run a Maguire Mini with a Gordon Allen Cosworth BDH engine (like Peter Baldwin's Baby 4, but not as succesful). It used a dry-sump system with a scavenge pump and large oil tank, located in the rear of the car. Never had any transmission problems.

321lightspeed

34 posts

220 months

Monday 26th March 2018
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Hello D900SP
Just searching for info about an Allen BDH with dry sump run in the 70's which wasn't Baldwins, and I saw this post. Who's car was it you looked after?
Thanks

pilbeam_mp62

955 posts

208 months

Tuesday 3rd April 2018
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Nice thread resurrection. !! The previous post was 9 years ago...... :-)

D900SP

458 posts

190 months

Saturday 3rd November 2018
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Slight delay in replying....
I help Bob Kirk in the Wendy Special Saloons championship with his red and white Mini.

Lowboidrifting

10 posts

48 months

Tuesday 24th November 2020
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I have thought about this recently. You would be restricted about flowing the oil through engine into the gearbox. It could made into two separate systems (engine gets a tank and separate pump and the gearbox gets it's own supply of oil for it to have)

fikus01

45 posts

185 months

Sunday 18th July 2021
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Having recently learned that the Lamborghini Miura also coped the mini with the sump and gearbox sharing oil and was converted late on to separate the oil systems. It’s now often done to them in retrospect. Makes me want to look harder at how to do it in a mini. Just for fun.