When you run a tuned car, there’s more to oil than simply choosing the correct type – as even the best oils can’t cope if the engine’s oil system isn’t up to scratch.
While no oil system upgrades improve engine performance, for tuned engines and track use, some rapidly become vital if you want to avoid big repair bills. Here are some of the most common upgrades and how they can help you…
1. Oil cooler
If you use your car hard on track, it can be easy for your oil temps to raise to dangerously high levels. To prevent this, an oil cooler is needed. An oil cooler is simply the oil equivalent of your car’s water radiator, and provided it has suitable airflow, even a relatively small one can do a good job of keeping oil temperatures under control. It’s important on a road car that you fit an oil cooler setup with a thermostat, as if the oil is constantly circulated through the cooler it can take a very long time to reach operating temp, or even drop below it at speed, which is potentially more damaging than overly hot oil.
2. Baffled sump
Sump baffles are sections of metal (sometimes including swinging trapdoors), that are welded in to a car’s oil sump to help prevent oil surge during hard cornering. Their main job is to keep as much oil around the pick-up pipe, while not preventing returning oil from reaching this area. Baffled sumps can either be modified standard ones, or full aftermarket sump setups. Most performance car sumps have some form of built in baffles, but they can usually be improved, and most cars with known issues have off the shelf upgrades available.
3. Accusump
Accusumps are mechanical oil reservoirs that connect to the engine’s oiling system. They are designed to collect pressurised oil from your engine and store it and then automatically discharge it when oil pressure is low. They can be used to deliver oil before starting to prevent dry start scuffing, but their primary use is to discharge oil during low oil pressure surges such as hard cornering to protect against engine damage.
4. Dry sump
The ultimate, and indeed most expensive, oil system in existence – a dry sump system holds the oil in a separate external oil tank rather than a large sump at the bottom of the engine. The main advantages of a dry sump is there are no issues with oil surge due to hard cornering, and the pump setup can give sufficient flow for even the most highly tuned engine. There are other advantages too, the engine can be mounted lower without a large oil sump, and the oil tank can be mounted further to the rear, which can be used to improve weight distribution on race cars.
5. Performance oil pump
With sustained high rpm use it’s been known for the standard oil pump to not supply enough pressure or flow for adequate lubrication, and in that case an uprated oil pump is required. Some uprated pumps simply have a stronger spring in the bypass valve to increase oil pressure, while others are totally reworked to give much higher flow without increased pressure. Higher flow is usually a more attractive proposition than simply higher pressure, although high-flow pumps are not always available, and always more expensive than a simple stronger spring.
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