It's to get better departure angle. We've never had a ground clearance
problem, the current design suffers from decreased departure angle
because of the rear cradle bar(granted you can drag scrape and try to
wreck it and it'll hold up, and not need paint afterwards still) but
anyhow the ground clearance is limited by the adapter plate and bell
housing once we go to the dry sump, but with the dry sump we will have
better departure angle than the stock wbx, along with the 8-12 quart
res capacity. It'll also allow us to have full undercladding in the
rear. The only thing I don't like about the dry sump is as David
points out, it is more complex, but we're not going whole hog and
using a multi-stage dry sump setup like race cars, we're just doing a
scavenge and feed system for the stock crank driven pump to keep it as
simple as possible, but make the increased risks to a minimum while
making the increased benefits wholly outweigh the increase in risk.

Jim Akiba

On 1/11/08, Allan Streib <streib@cs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> Dry sump?  that's interesting, is that to get better ground clearance?
>
> Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM> writes:
>
> > That engine cost $400, $180 to ship it... I got reamed but I wanted
> > that engine with 7k for Kipp... so no biggie.  But you didn't answer
> > *my* questions...
> >
> > Yeah the oil cooler thing... yuck. At least if the oil/coolant
> > exchanger from the zetec escape that we use now has a problem and we
> > lose the coolant,  the engine has the overheat protection, but as of
> > now, there is no oil pressure protection short of the MIL. With the
> > dry sump setup we're working on, there will be both oil level
> > indicators for the res, and pressure warning both light and audible
> > again as with the wbx, with 30 second shut-down warning(some factory
> > engines are starting to do this, but liability is really high, since
> > naturally shutting down at the wrong time with no warning affects the
> > brake booster.. NOT GOOD)
> >
> > Jim Akiba
>
> --
> 1991 Vanagon GL
>