So while I had the motor out of the Little Blue Monster doing a rebuild, I decided to do some oil system preventative maintenance.

While my pan has a Miata Racing baffle, I still get pressures below 20 PSI (using a Boundary Stage 2 - 80 PSI pump) on very hard RH turns after a long LH sweeper at the end of threshold braking. Think of turn 15 after Bishops bend at Sebring while on 245 Hoosier A's. My bearings weren't bad, but still wanted a buffer. If your on street tires or even spec Miata slicks, I don't see a need for the extra weight, cost, complexity or failure points.

Decided on a 2 Qt. Canton Accusump fitted in the passenger footwell where I could see the pressure gauge, and use a manual shutoff. Line has to be braided stainless in cockpit instead of my normal lightweight nylon braid due to ruleset.


First step is to remove sound deadening tar:

7 Lbs of crushed dry ice a bit of alcohol and a plastic scraper made it easy and clean. Crushed up the dry ice, spread over deadener, covered w a towel and listened to it crack and pop. About 10 minutes later popped right up in big pieces w a plastic scraper. Made a piece of cardboard and taped it to tunnel for vertical insulation, filled it with ice removed from floor and it popped off in a couple nice large pieces. 2 little squares remained on floor so made little piles of dry ice, poured a bit of isopropyl alcohol on them and a minute later scraped them right off.

Cleaned residue w Goo Gone and alcohol.

 

Figuring braided SS line would run forward through footwell and firewall. This necessitated a 1 1/8" hole through 2 layers of sheet metal. The metal is stupid thin and easy to drill w a sharp hole saw. Really a case of measure 15 times, drill once. If I did it again, I would have gone about 1 inch lower, but have to avoid cradle mount bolts and ABS lines as well as fuel lines.

There is a great hole in side of tunnel some use, but that would add 2 line fittings and a 90 degree bulkhead fitting. Would look trick, but add failure points.

After drilling, used a vacuum and magnet on a piece of weed eater line to get all shavings down inside unibody structure. Polished hole edges smooth and touched up with rust preventative paint. Just so happens previously removed air conditioning line firewall gromets were the perfect size for both holes.



I am already running a very large Setrab oil cooler off a thermostatic plate, so had to splice into the return line with some very creative RaceFlux fittings compliments of Improved Racing.
Believe I used a #10 male T run, a 45-degree double swivel, as well as the 3 straight swivel seal fittings. The perfect setup would incorporate the IR High flow low cracking pressure #12 body size check valve. But I just couldn't make it fit, so the filter backflow preventer will just have to do its job. Shortening the return line, in the car was a PITA.

I wanted the accumulator as far inboard as possible, as this TT car doesn't have a cage yet and didn't want the tank next to the door w no side impact protection.
Takes some very careful planning for mount holes as the fuel lines run right under where the inboard forward tank mount hole goes. Made a cardboard template and located while under car.

 

Wanted a more secure and sanitary mount for the shutoff cable so instead of using the giant Canton bracket, I fabricated one that mounted securely to tunnel.

Rubber mounted brackets to floor using grade 8 hardware, rubber mounted tank clamps. Rubber gromets are original air conditioning line bulkhead gromets.

With some creativity mounted the shutoff handle where easily reached while strapped in. Fabricated a bushing that fit the contour of the inside of my dash to mount to. Then relocated my fire extinguisher to a better spot for reaching while belted in, again I really should have a full system but no cage.

 

Km

 

Looks good for the most part. I wouldn't trust the back flow valve in the filter to prevent reverse flow when the Accsump pressure exceeds the system pressure. The check valves can be difficult to locate. Mine end up requiring a stack of adapters to hang it off the oil cooler outlet.

 

Trick is my Mocal thermostatic sandwich plate allows 10%-90% bypass hot or cold, rendering return line check valve irrelevant. I actually purchased the Improved check valve but after conversations with Boundary, Mocal & Canton just went with no check valve setup. Oil pump won't backflow much even while cavitating and filter back flow preventer should work.

Not optimum but will work. Optimum would be oil post filter, as you could get from block passage or using remote filter.

 

Just making sure I'm following here, you didn't have a good reason to do this from a numbers/wear you found standpoint. You did this as a just in case? I was considering doing this as a protection measure as well, without numbers, but it seems a bit more involved than I want to get if it's 'just in case.' I'm not running the downforce or slicks that you are!

 

Glad this thread got bumped back to the top as I had missed it. That's a great setup with the manual cable control!

 

Yeah, that setup is gangster. Where can I read more about your car, you got a thread on it somewhere I missed over the years?

 

Mine went in the boot. I mounted the oil line in such a way as I could place a shutoff valve in the tunnel, with the spindle through the tunnel wall and the handle within reach sitting in the seat.

 

It is pretty involved and the costs add up quickly. Really is not needed, "unless car is on big slicks and driven to the limit." Data showed I could be in trouble even if bearings didn't self destruct yet. Since I'm not going for the TT3 championship this year, I may run TTU and turn it up "a bit"??

Thank you. Unfortunately I'm lazy and have never done a full writeup on my car. If you search my username you will see some information posts.

Really thought about the trunk for weight distribution and safety. But just liked the idea of a shorter run and slightly lower weight both in lbs and CG.