One of the items that’s critical to ensuring a long life and high performance from an engine is the oiling system – having too much oil can hinder performance as the crankshaft has to sling its way through the oil, and not having enough can hurt performance in the opposite direction by damaging the engine’s bearings and potentially the crankshaft and block.
Peterson Fluid Systems is one of the innovators in this segment, and their Facebook page has a bunch of different technical tips on how to increase performance from your oiling system. They’ve found that setting the sweet spot in a dry-sump oiling system between one-half to two-thirds full at 3,000 RPM is ideal. If there’s too much oil in the tank, the engine will tell you so by blowing oil through the breather system, and not enough oil in the tank will manifest itself by fluctuating the oil pressure reading on the gauge.
The reason for the fluctuation in a not-full-enough tank is that the pickup point is covered and uncovered during operation, which will draw air into the pump and cause the variable readings. If you’ve got a dry-sump oiling system, they offer a CNC billet dipstick to help you keep the level at an optimum point – the stick is used to check the level, and then you can put the stick back in your toolbox until the next time you change the engine’s oil.
Check out Peterson’s Facebook page for more oiling tips to help you get the maximum amount of performance from your oiling system, and ultimately, your engine. They update it with new tips regularly.
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