1G Road Racers: Blowing oil filters

[Slow old poop]

There I was, going down the front straight at Midamerica Motorplex (south of Council Bluffs, Iowa) when it happened again. I had just passed two Vipers and was watching the modded M3 coming up fast in my mirrors and -- kablooie -- all three cars disappeared in a huge cloud of blue smoke as my oil filter blew a seal -- again. Boy, does that make a mess!

I am running 120 psi oil pressure at 7000 rpm and 20 psi boost. The first time it happened, we blew an Amsoil filter (it came with the car, so I used it). We replaced the Amsoil with a Wix filter and ran a couple more events with no problems. Now I dunno what to do.

I know drag racers don't have this problem (some of the ones I ask just scratch their heads and say, what filter? Who uses a filter?). Or, if they do use a filter, their run is over in 10 seconds or so, and they never have a problem. Constant WOT at 120 psi seems to do in the filter seals.

I didn't blow the filter at the last two events, probably because we were suffering boost leaks, and I could not hold a constant 20 psi. Now that we have all the leaks fixed, and I can run a solid 20 psi, it blows the oil filter. I assume there is a relationship there, n'est ce pas? Or not? We want to turn the boost up to 29 psi on race gas, but not if we are going to blow the filter.

My wrench, Mike the Mechanic, is finding instructions for modding the oil pump to lower the pressure down to 80 psi or so, but I thought I'd ask the list here if (a) does anybody else have the problem? (b) what did you do about it?

Thanks for your help

Rich

 

[gsx951]

There has been discussion on filters blowing but I've not suffered this. Usually the problem is with the stud that the filter screws onto loosening up.

Here's so info on the pressure relief mod: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189311&highlight=oil+relief+mod

 

[Slow old poop]

1. There has been discussion on filters blowing but I've not suffered this. Usually the problem is with the stud that the filter screws onto loosening up.

2. Here's so info on the pressure relief mod: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=189311&highlight=oil+relief+mod

1. Maybe that's it then. When the filter blows out the seal, the filter gets loose. We don't know what happened first, though: the seal blowing out or the bolt loosening. How do you tell if it's the stud and how do you fix it?

2. Wow! Interesting thread. Nobody answered the last question, though: What's the proper oil pressure? I am running 120 psi at 7000 rpm, and about 90 psi at 3500 (from a real gauge). It's a built motor, all the usual mods, Frank 20G turbo.

Rich/slow old poop
90 GSX

 

[gsx951]

Check your cams and the cam journals. When I dumped all of my oil, I caught the event live on a mechanical pressure gauge. I shut the motor off and rolled off the road in neutral. It was enough to score the head and $600.00 worth of HKS cams.
The stud needs a 24mm deep well and red loctite. Clean it well with brake cleaner and torque it down. Mine never came loose again but I wasn't going to trust it again. I ditched it for a 1990 style and went to a Setrab cooler.

 

[MNGSX]

I have seen a filter blow apart !


Take the adapter housing apart.. Clean, polish, and debur the pressure relief valve and the cooler valve.. Slightly port the pressure relief valve and replace the spring if neccessary.

 

[Slow old poop]

I have seen a filter blow apart !


Take the adapter housing apart.. Clean, polish, and debur the pressure relief valve and the cooler valve.. Slightly port the pressure relief valve and replace the spring if neccessary.

Mine didn't blow apart, it blew the seal out. But, like I said, I dunno if it's the filter seal because of too much oil pressure, or the filter stud coming loose, like GSZ951 suggests. Looks like Mike the Mechanic and I will have to go in there either way and tend to it. Guess we'll do all of the above.

Thanks for the help.
Rich

 

[Greg Collier]

I had the same problem and ended up blowing the dip stick out including a half a quart of oil over the turbo and engine. Fire destroyed my wiring harness and lots of other flamable goodies.

Installed spring loaded catch on the dip stick, went to a larger oil cooler with 1/2" lines, increased the size of my valve cover breathers, went to 10-40 Red Line, and run a half quart of oil lower which is somewhat compensated by the larger oil cooler. I'm running between 90-100 PSI hot.

I couldn't imagine running 29lbs of boost in a 45 minute sprint race. You must have a mega radiator. What other things are you doing to assist in your cooling?

Greg

 

[Defiant]

I am running 120 psi oil pressure at 7000 rpm

Holy yikes, why? 10psi/1000 rpm is plenty. Plain bearings hold oil- oil is pumped to them just to replace it before it overheats and cokes.

 

[stealthTT]

Hi this is Mike ("the Mechanic" as Rich calls me ). After Rich blew the first oil filter this spring I searched on here and found out about the oil relief porting. I was going to do that the next time I had Rich's car for some work, but we haven't got around to it yet.

He has a 90 filter housing with an aftermarket oil cooler. The car was built by a previous owner for One Lap of America and so it has a lot of good things done to it. They just left out porting the relief valve, I guess.

The oil filter stud looks really good and it was the first thing I checked. The housing looks fairly new and the threads look great.

I'm sure it's the lack of balance shafts and sustained periods of time over 4000 rpm. So I plan to port the relief valve before we go to Road America in mid October for the F-Body associations event.

Thanks for all the helpful advice. It's nice to find a dsm forum with knowledgeable, helpful people.

 

[Slow old poop]

II couldn't imagine running 29lbs of boost in a 45 minute sprint race. You must have a mega radiator. What other things are you doing to assist in your cooling?

Greg

It has a Fluidyne aluminum radiator and Electric Flex-a-lite fans. I plan to use 29 psi kinda like drag racers use nitrous: only when I need it. I will be running NASA events (if they ever have any around here -- the last two were cancelled), starting with time trials. This is where the fastest lap time wins the class. My plan is to run it at 20 psi until I learn the line and have everything running right, then tip in some 110 octane race gas, kick the boost to 29 psi, and try to set fastest lap. I can't see running all weekend at 29 psi.

What I would really like to do this winter is change the manual boost controller over to something I can control from the cockpit, so I can click it up to 29 psi when I need it, but run mostly at 20 psi. When I "graduate" from the NASA time trials to "real" NASA racing, it would be handy to have 9 more psi and 100 extra hp at the click of a switch.

Mike the Mechanic and I are currently trying to figure out what all we want to it do this winter. We are planning on water/alcohol injection, maybe a Blitz boost controller, and E Manage, but I'll probably ask this group that question as winter gets closer. As we've found out with the 120 psi oil pressure, what's good for drag racing ain't necessarily good for road racing.

 

[Greg Collier]

I'm using a Profec B dual boost controller with a wireless steering wheel switch that's done a good job for me. Sometimes I get tempted to push the "boost" envelope but I try an keep a level head. It's far better to finish the race and race another day, then to melt...

(Been there done that!)

Greg

 

[paul s]

I have lost the oil filter housing 3 times, once while lapping, once logging 4th gear and the other just driving at a steady 80mph. If it was not for my greddy oil pressure gauge that i watch all the time I would have no engine. My solution was to install EVO3 7 bolt oil cooler. Problem solved, the car runs 10deg C cooler and no more worries..When I lost the OFH while lapping I was doing around 85mph around a corner and all of the sudded I have noticed a lot of smoke behind me. The oil pressure started to drop as all of my tires got covered with oil (85mph) and the car started to spin out(180deg), I kept it on the track but facing the other way. Half way through the spin I shut the engine off as the pressure was getting below 10psi.. I have lost all of my oil in few seconds. After we pushed the car back to the pits I had to help the maintenance guys clean up the track..

 

[Dauntless]

Wow! Interesting thread. Nobody answered the last question, though: What's the proper oil pressure? I am running 120 psi at 7000 rpm, and about 90 psi at 3500 (from a real gauge). It's a built motor, all the usual mods, Frank 20G turbo.

The general consensus in road racing is that one needs 10 psi of HOT oil pressure per 1000 RPMs. In your case that means 70 psi at 7000 RPMs with the oil hot. Mike's planned 80 psi sounds fine to me, but the 120 you're seeing now is way too high. Aside from blowing filter seals it is sapping power from the engine and adding extra heat to the oil, simply from running at too high pressure.

 

[DSM007]

I have lost the oil filter housing 3 times, once while lapping, once logging 4th gear and the other just driving at a steady 80mph. If it was not for my greddy oil pressure gauge that i watch all the time I would have no engine. My solution was to install EVO3 7 bolt oil cooler. Problem solved, the car runs 10deg C cooler and no more worries..When I lost the OFH while lapping I was doing around 85mph around a corner and all of the sudded I have noticed a lot of smoke behind me. The oil pressure started to drop as all of my tires got covered with oil (85mph) and the car started to spin out(180deg), I kept it on the track but facing the other way. Half way through the spin I shut the engine off as the pressure was getting below 10psi.. I have lost all of my oil in few seconds. After we pushed the car back to the pits I had to help the maintenance guys clean up the track..

I have to say....your the MAN to go back and help them clean up the track

 

[stealthTT]

We finally got around to porting the oil relief valve and installed it today. I matched the picture that someone posted on here. They had the area to port marked in blue. We installed it and started the car up. The hot idle pressure had dropped about 5-10 psi and above 4000 rpm it still hit 120 psi. So we pulled it back off and ported some more. Rich told me to open it as much as I wanted, because we could always buy another. So, I ported it right down to the seal and really wide. I'd guess it's twice as big now and completely ovalled out. I'll attach a picture at the end of this post. Well we installed it and started it up. At idle I thought we had it beat. We were down a good 10psi to around 40 at hot idle. Ran the rpms up and it held 100-105 from 4000 to 7000rpm. I was kinda bummed that it was still so high. We then test drove it and it held 100-105 from 4-7000 rpm in a 2nd gear pull.

Is it being restricted somewhere else? Maybe where it drops back into the pan? The gasket has a huge hole and there's no RTV where it drains into the pan that I can see. If we can't figure it out, we're going to drop the oil pan this winter and take a good look at that end. Then we could also check the bearings and see how they're holding up.

I also have a bigger picture and 2 others at:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=4289579747

Thanks, Mike.

 

[GreenGSX]

I know this sound obvious but you really have to be sure there isn't still a bur that is keeping the valve from opening all the way. When I did mine the valve would hang up every once and a while. I had to really de-bur and chamfer (sp?) the porting I did to make sure it didn't happen again. Another option is try cutting a few coils off the spring. Just don't cut to many. You don't want to lose pressure at idle.

 

[stealthTT]

I cleaned it out really well after porting it. Then I lubed it with some oil and test fit it. I pushed it with my finger back and forth and it didn't snag at all. It slipped back and forth Easily.

I might try adding some washers under the bolt. That would shorten everything just like cutting the spring. But we mainly want it to flow more at high rpms. So you'd think all you'd have to do is open it wider like I did. But it didn't help the high rpms much. Basically it just lowered the psi about 10 psi down low and 15 psi in the upper rpms. I'd like it to lower about another 20-25 psi to around 80psi from 4-7000 rpms.

Thanks for the help.

Later, Mike.

 

[captkirk9195]

I know on my Road Race car, I see similar oil pressures (100-120 psi). I actually put a hose clamp around the*mitsubishi* oil filters, and safety wire the clamp to the hole on the block that is just above the filter.

I've never had an oil filter back off since I did that. I do want to get the pressure down as well, since I believe the pressure is just too high. Hard to keep the seals from leaking as a result of the pressure.

 

[stealthTT]

I know on my Road Race car, I see similar oil pressures (100-120 psi). I actually put a hose clamp around the*mitsubishi* oil filters, and safety wire the clamp to the hole on the block that is just above the filter.

I've never had an oil filter back off since I did that. I do want to get the pressure down as well, since I believe the pressure is just too high. Hard to keep the seals from leaking as a result of the pressure.

Your problem sounds like a stripped oil filter stud. Check the threads on the stud. They may be slightly stripped and allowing the filter to slip back under that much pressure. However, our problem is the seal between the filter and the housing gets blown out at sustained runs of 120psi. It actually stretches the seal and pushes it out until pressure can escape past it. We're going to try it on the track this weekend at Road America and see how it does. The pressure is down a little. Maybe it's enough to get us by. Maybe we should wrap it in Pampers to catch the oil if it does get expelled.

p.s. We also just found a used dsmlink for cheap. So we hope to get that put on and tuned Thursday and Friday before the racing this weekend. I can't wait to yank out that SAFC. Goodbye mid throttle/high load leaning out.

 

[captkirk9195]

I actually have also replaced the stud and oil filter housing to a 90 housing since it backed off last, but I started the clamping before I did that and it worked. It's more of an extra assurance thing, because it keeps me from overtightening the filter.

I know I did overtighten one filter and have the gasket push out suddenly under high oil pressure once (again before I started clamping them), so I wonder if that could have something to do with your situation.

HTH

 

[stealthTT]

Sounds like we have similar problems then if you replaced your housing. If the porting I did isn't enough, I'll dig into the problem some more this winter. I'll report back what we find and maybe come up with the best solution for future roadracers. After talking with a bunch of people about this problem, it seems to be a Very common occurrence.

 

[uncle buck]

It's always been a VERY common occurence on those running the POS Water to Oil Cooler as it Compresses & then bloooie... It's NOT common at all on those Motors without Water to Oil Coolers - But this guy is really pushing the envelope, I like the Hose Clamp & Safety Wire idea for his application.