I really hate having to ask this question just a couple weeks before
mid-Ohio...
To make sure everything's ready, I ran a Solo 1 this weekend and after a few
laps noticed that the oil pressure drops drastically during sharp cornering,
in both directions. I had hoped to find that the baffle in the sump was
loose or broken, which I think would let oil slosh away from the pump
pickup, but everything looks normal. Pressure holds at 80 pounds on the
straights, but drops in sharp turns, then recovers to 80 back on the
straight. On a couple occasions it didn't seem to recover right away, and
once in the paddock I lugged the engine in 1st gear and it dropped there
too. The engine ran strong at all times, with no noticable problems other
than the oil pressure fluctuation and that it might have been running a
little hotter than usual, but it was a hot day, too.
The engine has 8 race weekends on it so I won't be surprised if it's getting
tired, but I didn't expect oil pressure fluctuations to be an indicator of
that. I'm running an Accusump and didn't have it opened on the run when I
first noticed the fluctuations, but on the next run I opened it and got the
same thing. The questions is, does this sound like an oil pump problem
(since it's not the sump baffle) or is there something else I should be
looking at? I'm sure it's not the gauge(s) since there's 2 of them
connected in different places and they both show the fluctuation.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated... Don
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