I don’t know how many Honda conversions have been done, quite a few by my reckoning so maybe it’s not something to worry about (on the grand scheme of things)… but James Bowers and Ian Wilsons engines have both died recently.
Could it be the same problem that Russ had with his ?
Don’t think so David. Jim & Ian appear to have been pulling around 1g for over 11 seconds at Spa, causing oil starvation.
Russ’s problem appears to have been a sticking pressure release valve, causing excessive pressure resulting in an oil leak.
Baffled sumps for all engines to be subjected to such g forces, would appear to be the order of the day.(Gav Kershaw fitted one to my K series in 2003 )
Didn’t Jimbo and Ian both have baffled sumps ?!
Firstly we won’t know whats happened until we pull it apart. But unlike some I wanted to be upfront about the failure. Both Jimbo and I have accumlated a lot of hard track milage. If this is as we suspect a failure due to oil stavation then it is not ‘Honda’ related but a product of high lateral loads over a sustained period. Spa is almost my local circuit and Pouhon is the type of corner that can produce conditions leading to oil stavation no matter what engine you’re running. A baffled sump can lead to a false sense of confidence and it’s only after the event that you realise a corner like Pouhon is capable of draining a baffled sump and leaving you high and dry for a few seconds.
The Honda engined Elises have already proven their reliablity and there has not been a single mechanical failure yet. Starve any engine of oil and the result will be the same everytime. In my case I was lucky/unlucky to have been able to do Spa on a regular basis over the past year…
Thanks for clearing that up. Is the Honda more prone to oil starvation than other engines ? (otherwise every car at Spa would die !)
Thanks for clearing that up. Is the Honda more prone to oil starvation than other engines ? (otherwise every car at Spa would die !)
I have not compared the design of the sump and placement of the oil pickup to any other engine so I can’t comment. If I recall the Rover eninge is also prone to oil stavation in certain circumstances. In addition for most people Spa is not a regular event and the damage accumlated in one annual trip to Spa will take a long time to become terminal. The majority of Elises I’ve seen at Spa are not driven nearly hard enough to have a problem.
There could also be an issue with the baffled sump. My car had the Prototype Racing conversion and the baffled sump that came with the kit has a relatively small capacity. So the very precaution I took to prevent oil stavation may have contributed to it.
[image]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28/iwilson/bafflebox.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com[/image]
Just as an addendum to this; mine has the Blink baffled sump and I have not really done anything like the high g stuff at Spa etc. Our first race is at Mallory though, so I guess we will find out - Gerrards must be an oil starvation corner if there was one. What else can you do though, without changing to a dry sump?
Ian, do you know what temp the oil is getting to?
Ian
Ian, do you know what temp the oil is getting to?
Ian
Approx 130C on track - it has the stock water/oil cooler which seems to be sufficent. Off the scale when a big end goes
Engine runs Motul fully synthetic, it’s checked everytime I go on track. Never caned till 80C (oil) and it was full of oil both before and after the event.
Just as an addendum to this; mine has the Blink baffled sump and I have not really done anything like the high g stuff at Spa etc. Our first race is at Mallory though, so I guess we will find out - Gerrards must be an oil starvation corner if there was one. What else can you do though, without changing to a dry sump?
I’m considering an accusump http://www.accusump.com/
Ian
Is that the Prototype baffled sump ? Surely not ? It’s tiny, can’t hold more than a litre at best.
Bernard
My Audi engine has a baffled sump, by jabbasport…
Just to make it clear - THAT corner goes on forever and like Pesky said I pulled .8-.9g for 11 seconds.
If you know the place you would be easy pulling more with sticky tyres and maybe a bit less time.
Whatever its a very long time to be not getting “back to centre”
I am also convinced I saw my oil pressure drop there, not enough to make the warning come on ( set at 35 PSI ) but suficeient to notice it !
And to top that I have a whole load of Mobil one in my catch tank after Spa and Zandvoort - damn thing is overflowing …
So if you are doing that regular then something is going to happen eventually … I would guess its not just a one time thing ( unless you didnt check your oil level )
Ian
Is that the Prototype baffled sump ? Surely not ? It’s tiny, can’t hold more than a litre at best.
Bernard
I was young and naive and didn’t know any better.
Just to add to this. Ian’s car has done 25K miles since he has had it and a large portion of them have been on track where he certainly doesn’t hang about. His engine is also of unknown origin and has always made the most power of all the Hondas, suggesting its loose having done a few miles. Putting this into perspective an average race engine would have a rebuild every 3000 miles so if his has done 13K of hard track miles + the road miles he has done + the miles already on the engine its pretty good going. On top of this Ian doesn’t have a sensor to detect oil pressure and knock off Vtec, these are fitted to all the Scuffham cars and acts as an early warning devise.
These days track days are becoming more and more popular but people still seem to expect the same sort of reliability that comes with road cars. Not only is this unrealistic but its also dangerous in some ways as many track day cars are neglected. Hondas may be the most reliable engine out there but if they are used hard on the track then issues are going to occur.
As a footnote Simon S and I were on soft slicks and going through Pouhan at a serious lick and encountered no problems. We have a baffled sump of Simon’s own design.
Bit of a cut and paste jobbie from a post I made on Seloc. But it addresses some of the points raised.
Obviously one track mile is worth more than one road mile. But I’m not putting this down to wear and tear. This failure was most likely caused by a lack of oil rather than simple wear and tear. I certainly wouldn’t bother with another Honda if I thought for one moment that I’ll need to replace the engine every 18 months. I’m confident that this failure will be proven to have been caused by a unique combination of factors. By addressing the root cause, I don’t expect to have another problem for a considerable period of time.
The fact is that your engine needs to come appart before we have any answers - all we are doing is speculating.
Its fair enough saying that you don’t want to change engines every 18 months, nor do I, but we do all need to acknowledge that no engine will go on forever if used hard on the track. I’m extremely confident that a Honda will do more track miles than pretty much any other engine but the honest truth is that not enough have been stripped to find out how many miles the limit is. This will all be discovered in the fullness of time and your engine will certainly be interesting to strip.
We have to stop meeting like this I refer you to my reply on Seloc
my vhpd suffered from oil starvation! just seen the engine in bits! too much track use methinks! anyway to prevent this in future?
Baffled sump minimum, accusump good, dry sump best.
