Rhyscar's Toyota Levin - ‘fab it all from scratch’ project

[mjrstar]

^^ have also seen failburger accusump and dry sump systems that resulted in grenaded engines. 

The less unique / bespoke parts the better for trouble free motorsport In my opinion - I guess they have there place in professional race teams / purpose built cars but less so on converted road cars.

 

My honda is stock oil system, with just a moroso baffled sump, and external breather tank via stock breather points. Unknown km bone stock engine, but bound to be approaching 200,000km, up the Rev limit to 9,000 rpm & send it with no oil pressure monitoring other than factory light in dash. I guess if the vtec stops one day then it might have not enough oil pressure?

 

[Truenotch]

The TRS dry sump and tank setup is really simple, so I reckon it'd be about as easy as they come... But the layout would be super tight in a FWD car.

[440bbm]

that looks like its a bit horny haha

[kpr]

21 hours ago, Rhyscar said:

@kpr did that one have a cooler or remote oil filter? I'm wondering if I've got a pressure drop through the housing as I haven't smoothed out the flow patht... So could be causing it to drop a little sooner than expected. 

Another thought I had was that I don't know anything about the pressure relief on the 2zz.. is it same as oldschool pressure reliefs where you can run a shim/washer to increase it's max a little? Oil pump and pressure relief are easily accessible so might be worth mucking with? 

 

 

 

 Pretty sure they have an oil cooler on it.  this one had some kind of aftermarket sump also.      Their other car runs a stock engine,   but doesn't look like i saved any logs off that one.  
Increasing the relief pressure  doesn't seem like it would make it hold pressure longer.

 

[Rookie]

On 27/02/2025 at 23:34, Roman said:

Dry sump can introduce as many problems as it fixes. 

Blame user or installer error if you like, but i think ive seen as many trackdays come to an early end from oil leaks, oil flying out, oil spills, belts flying off, etc from dry sump issues as much as anything else. 

Also max irony points when someone loses oil pressure because of a sandwich plate coming loose that was only there for sake of monitoring oil pressure.

I really can't agree with you there. There is a reason why every form of professional motorsport relies on it, and it is because it is better in every performance metric. I can however agree that if it is put together with substandard parts, by someone who is unqualified to do the job, then there is a high likelihood of it being a failure. 

Loss of oil pressure for any reason is a day ender, and can be easily mitigated with an ecu safety cut, which we should all have installed as a par for the course, dry sump or not.

@Rhyscar, if it was me mate, I would dig into what is actually causing the pressure drop off before ordering parts, whether it is the oil cooler, or cavitation due to the higher rpm, it would be nice to know before spending any money. Start with bypassing the oil cooler and see what happens.

[Rhyscar]

@Rookie after more research and talking to people, oil pressures varies in these engines massively. Some have seen as low as 43psi even using pump upgrade, cooler and ECU (5w30 instead of the 10w50 I'm using). But no run bearings. Others have seen pressures consistently in the low 60's also. 

So, I don't think it's as simple as at XXpsi it will blow up.. however its not going to hurt to do the following;

• OEM oil filter (+5psi)
• Flow filter relocation housings (+few more psi)
• Upgrade oil pump to stop it falling apart. Talking to Boundary pumps, the tip speed at 9000rpm is guaranteed to shatter an OEM pump. Even their billet pump requires extra heat treatment to withstand anything above factory redline (8200rpm)
• 10w60 oil (what they ran in TRS)
• Everyone I've talked to has mentioned running a harmonic balancer for long-term reliability. I won't do this right away, but something I need to do before it gets too much abuse. 

 

I managed to talk with David Gouk who built all the TRS motors about the dry sump system. Interestingly, they used the OEM gear pump for pressure, with the belt driven pump only doing scavenging. He mentioned it worked fine, but still had pressure drop-off up top as the gear speed gets too high. It was a compromised solution for reasons outside his control, so probably not the way to go. Apparently the Dailey Dry sump system is the way to go - but is big $$$$. 

So to summarise the oiling issue, I'm going back to the plan of upgrading the pump/backing plate and trying to get everything as good as possible. A little bit of pressure drop-off up top seems OK/normal so all I can do is mitigate the risk as much as possible and live with it. 

 

In other progress, nothing too exciting but still slowly moving forward as we wait for baby #2 to arrive. CV's are currently apart for a rebuild, and I'm working on new Turbosmart fuel pressure reg install. C5 Corvette reg would read 48psi when primed, then 70psi when engine running. I double checked plumbing, sensor calibration etc etc. May have just been a faulty unit, but without indication and ability to adjust, is just another thing that can go wrong and end your day - so in the bin it goes. Once I get this running I'll get the injectors checked out in case there is any sworf that ends up in the Fuel lines.

Going to need to book some shed time for my month off on paternity leave because there's so much to do and have a deadline looming!

[Rhyscar]

[Roman]

Interesting that they use a scavenge only setup! 
I remember when TRS first started, in 2004-2005ish and some of the cars started blowing up the oil pumps. (It was a brand new / unknown issue at the time) 
Because I had my motor in at the same workshop that built / rebuilt them all.
I suddenly got pushed way to the back of the queue as they had a stack of motors to diagnose and fix.
I never understood how that could have been blowing up the factory pump, if they had a dry sump - but that all makes sense now.

 

[Rookie]

Its pretty funny as I was going to mention it as a cheaper alternative, as I remembered that Billzilla from performance forums back in the day made a big write up about doing it that way with his beams powered Fraser, makes sense if the factory pressure pump is up to the job I suppose.  Also makes sense looking at Markku's photo why the pump is driven by a multivee belt, as its only scavenge any slippage isn't as devastating.

Anyway, crack on good chap!

[Rhyscar]

Airbox update #37… 

 

full size print arrived from Lithuania. Quality is very average, but should be good enough to make a mold and get a carbon part from. Found a few more small adjustments needed but these should be easy to sort in the mold. Annoyingly, I didn’t check bonnet clearance thoroughly enough on my previous prototype and the extra 5mm means it makes contact. 
 

Next challenge is to design and 3d print a stainless retaining ring for the inside with blind nutserts so I don’t need to individually locate 12x nuts inside the airbox when installing. This will also act as a washer to spread the load across the carbon. Also means less chance of tiny nuts vibrating loose and going through the intake! 
 

Very excited about the next step!! Been a long time coming