Hi Everyone,
As many of you may know, we had the engine in our '94 RT/10 rebuilt recently by Arrow for leaking head gaskets. While in for service and during their thorough inspection, they found that the camshaft bore was scored and needed to be machined. They bored it out and put in a service cam with larger journals. I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but the Viper V10 has no camshaft bearings. It never really bothered me until after we got the engine back. When we started the engine, we would hear "tick, tick, tick" while the engine was getting oil pressure and the lifters were pumping up for the first second or two. Because we now have a fresh motor and want to keep it that way, I decided to go ahead and make an improvement that I had been considering for quite a while.
About a month ago we installed a pre-lubrication / oil pressure accumulator system on the RT/10. With this system, we can fully pressurize the oil system before starting the engine. No more tick, tick, tick and no worries about cam bearings, rod bearings, main bearings, etc. running without oil pressure at startup.
Basically, the system consists of a sealed aluminum container that holds pressurized oil, an electric control valve, braided Teflon oil line and an adapter to "T" tap it into the factory oil cooler line (this is where it delivers and receives its oil pressure). The company's components we went with have some nice features. The system can be used as a pre-lubrication system for startup and an oil accumulator system (aka Accusump) for track events. With a three way switch, you can use the spring loaded position to turn it on temporarily for pre-lubrication purposes, then release it when the engine is ready to start. The control valve in the head of the accumulator tank has a one way feature in the off position that will allow the accumulator tank to refill itself and maintain the highest pressure the oil system gets to. That way, the next time you start the car, the accumulator tank has oil and is fully pressurized, ready to do it's job as a pre-luber at the next startup.
For track events, you'd turn the switch to the locked on position. As you're running around a long corner and the oil pan pickup starts to run dry, the accumulator will put it's pressurized oil into the engine, protecting the bearings from damage. This buys you about 4 to 5 seconds where you would otherwise could be running low oil pressure while cornering hard with high RPM's. No matter how good a wet sump oil pan (stock) is baffled, if you are cornering long enough, you can run out of oil in the baffled area. The accumulator makes a nice compliment to a baffled pan to make sure that doesn't happen.
In production sportscar road racing and drag racing, Accusump systems are common. We started using them on Corvettes in 1992 after wearing the sides off the connecting rods in road racing. There's only one drawback to most of the accumulator designs used in racing that make them not as desirable on the street. Most of them have a floating piston that separates the air from the oil. The piston has O-rings on it and at the end of a race season, they need to be replaced. As the piston is constantly moving back and forth, the O-ring tends to wear out. The company I used for ours has a unique design that doesn't have a moving piston that can wear out, so that makes it far more suitable for long term use.
Anyway, we've had it on the RT/10 for about a month now and it's working out great. So great in fact that I didn't even feel comfortable starting the GTS without one. I just put one on the GTS last night. It's worth tremendous peace of mind.
If anyone would like to see what it looks like, or would be interested in having one, let me know. I took pictures and am considering making a kit to put on the website.
As many of you may know, we had the engine in our '94 RT/10 rebuilt recently by Arrow for leaking head gaskets. While in for service and during their thorough inspection, they found that the camshaft bore was scored and needed to be machined. They bored it out and put in a service cam with larger journals. I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but the Viper V10 has no camshaft bearings. It never really bothered me until after we got the engine back. When we started the engine, we would hear "tick, tick, tick" while the engine was getting oil pressure and the lifters were pumping up for the first second or two. Because we now have a fresh motor and want to keep it that way, I decided to go ahead and make an improvement that I had been considering for quite a while.
About a month ago we installed a pre-lubrication / oil pressure accumulator system on the RT/10. With this system, we can fully pressurize the oil system before starting the engine. No more tick, tick, tick and no worries about cam bearings, rod bearings, main bearings, etc. running without oil pressure at startup.
Basically, the system consists of a sealed aluminum container that holds pressurized oil, an electric control valve, braided Teflon oil line and an adapter to "T" tap it into the factory oil cooler line (this is where it delivers and receives its oil pressure). The company's components we went with have some nice features. The system can be used as a pre-lubrication system for startup and an oil accumulator system (aka Accusump) for track events. With a three way switch, you can use the spring loaded position to turn it on temporarily for pre-lubrication purposes, then release it when the engine is ready to start. The control valve in the head of the accumulator tank has a one way feature in the off position that will allow the accumulator tank to refill itself and maintain the highest pressure the oil system gets to. That way, the next time you start the car, the accumulator tank has oil and is fully pressurized, ready to do it's job as a pre-luber at the next startup.
For track events, you'd turn the switch to the locked on position. As you're running around a long corner and the oil pan pickup starts to run dry, the accumulator will put it's pressurized oil into the engine, protecting the bearings from damage. This buys you about 4 to 5 seconds where you would otherwise could be running low oil pressure while cornering hard with high RPM's. No matter how good a wet sump oil pan (stock) is baffled, if you are cornering long enough, you can run out of oil in the baffled area. The accumulator makes a nice compliment to a baffled pan to make sure that doesn't happen.
In production sportscar road racing and drag racing, Accusump systems are common. We started using them on Corvettes in 1992 after wearing the sides off the connecting rods in road racing. There's only one drawback to most of the accumulator designs used in racing that make them not as desirable on the street. Most of them have a floating piston that separates the air from the oil. The piston has O-rings on it and at the end of a race season, they need to be replaced. As the piston is constantly moving back and forth, the O-ring tends to wear out. The company I used for ours has a unique design that doesn't have a moving piston that can wear out, so that makes it far more suitable for long term use.
Anyway, we've had it on the RT/10 for about a month now and it's working out great. So great in fact that I didn't even feel comfortable starting the GTS without one. I just put one on the GTS last night. It's worth tremendous peace of mind.
If anyone would like to see what it looks like, or would be interested in having one, let me know. I took pictures and am considering making a kit to put on the website.
