Oil Pressure Problems under heavy cornering - K20Z4 UK Atom 3

[NathanE]

Only just seen this thread, so sorry for the late input, but I too suffer from VTEC stall particularly after hard left hand corners, which I attribute to oil pressure issues. 

I first spoke to the factory about it early last summer. 

I have an A3 245 by the way running R888s. 

I am looking forward to them sorting out a decent baffled sump. 

[CalScot]

[quote="Monza"]
Calscot / Driver :
the thing i would not like is that someone buy a K20A oil pan (plenty on the market) instead of a K20Z4 one (only the Toda one on the market at the moment if my infos are good) if he has an Atom 3 ...

Calscot :
the oil "problem" on an UK Atom 2 K20A with the optional baffled sump (it was not standard) is coming only if you upgrade to slicks or very big wheels, not with Atom standard sizes R888 or A048R. I have never heard of any one having problem with the factory wheels / tyres combinations. Just to clarify and not scary a lot of Atom 2 owners for no good reasons ...

Colin H :
in this case the best solution for you or/and your friend is a combination of Baffled sump + small Accusump or an Accusump only, but in big size.
[/quote]

I know of two Atom II's that had oil issues with the "standard" wheels and the original factory baffles. Both running A048's at the time. A bog standard Atom can be driven hard enough to cause all sorts of problems that are discussed on this forum. If you really track the car all the time and beat it as hard as it can be beat, you will eventually have bearing issues, oil issues like this, fuel starvation issues, brake issues and more to come I would guess. The car is simply not designed and made to be a "race" car. It does really well as a fun track day/road legal car combo. Possibly better than any other car out there, but when it's run like a race car, these are things that will need to be dealt with or tolerated.

[NathanE]

CoxM (who knows what he is talking about) used to always say - drive it like a race car and you need to maintain it like a race car.  Tis very true. 

[dp35]

[quote="Monza"]
Calscot :
the oil "problem" on an UK Atom 2 K20A with the optional baffled sump (it was not standard) is coming only if you upgrade to slicks or very big wheels, not with Atom standard sizes R888 or A048R. I have never heard of any one having problem with the factory wheels / tyres combinations. Just to clarify and not scary a lot of Atom 2 owners for no good reasons ... [/quote]

[quote="dp35"]
I have a UK Atom 2, 245 hp, and this has been a significant problem for me, despite my car being fitted with the factory's baffled sump.  I had this problem on A048 tires at first.  [/quote]

Perhaps you just aren't driving yours hard enough Monza.  (just kidding - I've been wanting to say that to ever since you said it to me a long time ago)

[quote="Monza"]
Colin H :
in this case the best solution for you or/and your friend is a combination of Baffled sump + small Accusump or an Accusump only, but in big size.
[/quote]

I agree with this.  If you have doubts, install an Accumsump along with baffles.  That's what I'll be doing next if my current setup is not enough. 

[Monza]

Calscot : sorry but not Ok with you :
. Oil issues on an Atom 2 with Baffled sump :
never happened if oil level well made and standard wheels. You say you have "heard of": who are they ? are you personnaly 100% sure that oil level was well made before the "problem" ?
After having driven several Atoms on tracks from my first Atom 2 220, Atom 2 245 and 2 Atom 2 300 with standard 195x15 and 225x45 A048R or R888 tyres and optionnal Ariel baffled sump, i have never had any oil problem. Some of my friends were driving with slicks (normal sizes, not enormous ones ) : no problem.
But the first time i drove my new Atom 3 300 on track the 5 April 2008 ("normal" tyres again), i made a mail to Tom saying that there was oil pressure problem with consequence of no VTEC during about 1s during second part of corners. I immediatly bought and fit a Spa-design oil temp and oil pressure dial and come back on track to check it and inform Tom what pressure i had. First thing i do to minimise problem is to push the oil level 5 mm higher than maximum : that helps a lot.
At this time, there was no baffled sump on the market for this engine. So i bought an Accusump ... that i never fit because, even with bigger tyres : 225x16 front and 255x17 R888 Rear, the problem was solved in most of the corners with higher oil level.
In February/March 2009, i had ordered several Toda Baffled oil pan to secure my french Atom 3 customers and all my new Atom 3 has it now and we'll upgrade the ones delivered in 2008 (in France).

.Fuel starvation issues :
with normal tyres sizes , starvation begins when about 1/4 of fuel in tank and about 1/3 of tank if big tyres + aerofoil. Really an issue ? it gives you minimum 45 min of track with an Atom 3 300 instead of about 1 hour... it's not the case of your engine , but not really a standard atom engine, no ?

. Bearings :
with normal sizes tyres, even slicks, we know they have to be changed sometimes (1 times a year / every about 6 to 10 trackdays) as Maintenance. This is not the best system for me and i'm a DP customer for the new ones 

Brakes :
with UK Alcon Front and Rear with Blue Pagid (i order my Atoms with them) on an Atom 2 or 3 300 with normal sizes tyres, it's impossible to over heat them. With 400 whp, perhaps because of the superior speed on braking points.

That's my points and please Calscot, consider that most owners have "stock" factory Atoms, so not the same problems as you the ones you face now.

Of Course DP35 i'll try to push harder next time  are you still braking so smoothly 

[CalScot]

[quote="Monza"]
Calscot : sorry but not Ok with you :
. Oil issues on an Atom 2 with Baffled sump :
never happened if oil level well made and standard wheels. You say you have "heard of": who are they ? are you personnaly 100% sure that oil level was well made before the "problem" ?
After having driven several Atoms on tracks from my first Atom 2 220, Atom 2 245 and 2 Atom 2 300 with standard 195x15 and 225x45 A048R or R888 tyres and optionnal Ariel baffled sump, i have never had any oil problem. Some of my friends were driving with slicks (normal sizes, not enormous ones ) : no problem.
But the first time i drove my new Atom 3 300 on track the 5 April 2008 ("normal" tyres again), i made a mail to Tom saying that there was oil pressure problem with consequence of no VTEC during about 1s during second part of corners. I immediatly bought and fit a Spa-design oil temp and oil pressure dial and come back on track to check it and inform Tom what pressure i had. First thing i do to minimise problem is to push the oil level 5 mm higher than maximum : that helps a lot.
At this time, there was no baffled sump on the market for this engine. So i bought an Accusump ... that i never fit because, even with bigger tyres : 225x16 front and 255x17 R888 Rear, the problem was solved in most of the corners with higher oil level.
In February/March 2009, i had ordered several Toda Baffled oil pan to secure my french Atom 3 customers and all my new Atom 3 has it now and we'll upgrade the ones delivered in 2008 (in France).

.Fuel starvation issues :
with normal tyres sizes , starvation begins when about 1/4 of fuel in tank and about 1/3 of tank if big tyres + aerofoil. Really an issue ? it gives you minimum 45 min of track with an Atom 3 300 instead of about 1 hour... it's not the case of your engine , but not really a standard atom engine, no ?

. Bearings :
with normal sizes tyres, even slicks, we know they have to be changed sometimes (1 times a year / every about 6 to 10 trackdays) as Maintenance. This is not the best system for me and i'm a DP customer for the new ones 

Brakes :
with UK Alcon Front and Rear with Blue Pagid (i order my Atoms with them) on an Atom 2 or 3 300 with normal sizes tyres, it's impossible to over heat them. With 400 whp, perhaps because of the superior speed on braking points.

That's my points and please Calscot, consider that most owners have "stock" factory Atoms, so not the same problems as you the ones you face now.

Of Course DP35 i'll try to push harder next time  are you still braking so smoothly 
[/quote]
Monza,
I posted some of my experiences in direct relation to Colin H's post. He is basically racing his Atom and it is hardly a standard Atom is it?

I have never posted about my braking issues because it's not relevant to most Atom owners but I have been in constant dialog with DP35 about brakes because he had much the same issue as me. Shinoo also has been a great help with my brakes getting me good info and sample pads from the major brake manufacturers. FWIW, I completely toasted the Pagid Blue's 4-2-2 on the rear of my car with the Dymags and R888 tires. The rotors were puprple/blue and the pads basically had started to disintegrate. This is with Alcons on all four wheels. I am happy to explain my brake issues to anybody that needs help on a PM. Right now, my brakes work brilliant at any speed all day long but they are a unique set-up.

The two Atoms I know of that had oil issues in basically standard form are my own and DP35's. I would have Vtec take a brain fart on track all the time on the same hard G corners.  I cannot speak directly for DP35 but I cannot imagine him NOT checking his oil levels before tracking it. DP35 is the most meticulous Atom driver I know when it comes to his cars set up. Just because you have not experienced it does not make it impossible for everyone else.

As for fuel starvation issues, there is no reason why the tanks should not have a couple of simple baffles in the tank. The tanks are all hand made and it's a no brainer and cheap to put them in at the time they are made. No reason why your car should sputter with 1/4 tank of fuel when two plates welded in at MFG would allow you to run down past 1 gallon with no issues. Not to mention the problems with fuel starvation on a highly forced induction motor!

Of course if you think it's ok to get fuel starvation issues at 1/4 tank, then good for you. If you have no issues with brakes, that's great for you as well. Maybe I am not driving it right or I am dillusional about these problems and they only exist in my mind. Regardless, I dont give a toss whether you are OK with me or not!

[Monza]

Calscot : i'm only speaking with my personnal experience with my different Atoms since 5 years ... and the 25 Atom (21 are Atom 300) i have imported in France since 3 years, for whiich i'm regulary in contact with every customers. And more than 20 of them are regulary going on tracks, as i do.

As you say for the brakes, i consider that oil problem are irrelevant to Atom 2 owners with factory Baffled sump IF they stay with factory configuration of wheels / tyres and IF they check oil level to  3 mm more than the maximum before tracking. Of course, using a Motul V300 or similar high quality oil, even if oil temp is not an issue on the Atom.
With Standard wheel sizes, smoothest R888 and best factory specification it is impossible to exceed 1.3 /1.4 regular lateral g whatever the driver is.

For Atom 3 : 4 to 5 mm up the max is better (not perfect), but a baffled sump will secure. Factory is working on it and you have the Toda if you want it now.

Technical question about brakes :
i don't remember if you (USA) have the same rotor as we have here (UK/+) with Alcon brakes : caliper and pads , yes, but rotor ? (i have a pic in my mind with a different center part, but perhaps it was the wilwood).

[CalScot]

[quote="Monza"]
Calscot : i'm only speaking with my personnal experience with my different Atoms since 5 years ... and the 25 Atom (21 are Atom 300) i have imported in France since 3 years, for whiich i'm regulary in contact with every customers. And more than 20 of them are regulary going on tracks, as i do.

As you say for the brakes, i consider that oil problem are irrelevant to Atom 2 owners with factory Baffled sump IF they stay with factory configuration of wheels / tyres and IF they check oil level to   3 mm more than the maximum before tracking. Of course, using a Motul V300 or similar high quality oil, even if oil temp is not an issue on the Atom.
With Standard wheel sizes, smoothest R888 and best factory specification it is impossible to exceed 1.3 /1.4 regular lateral g whatever the driver is.

For Atom 3 : 4 to 5 mm up the max is better (not perfect), but a baffled sump will secure. Factory is working on it and you have the Toda if you want it now.

Technical question about brakes :
i don't remember if you (USA) have the same rotor as we have here (UK/+) with Alcon brakes : caliper and pads , yes, but rotor ? (i have a pic in my mind with a different center part, but perhaps it was the wilwood).
[/quote]

My Atom is a UK Atom. Alcons were shipped from the UK so they are the exact same as you have.
I installed them with new master cylinders as well. 0.700" front and rear. Pagid blue 4-2-2 pads.
Normal use, I can get the bias bar in the center position and I could get the fronts to lock up just a nano second before the rears. Seemed perfect. Getting them on track it works fine at first. After 4 -5 laps of good warm up no problem. Once the brakes are getting the full monty they change very quickly and the rears get up to a good temp the pads really get grippy. Problem is the fronts are still cool. I was getting temps on the rear rotors at 300*F and on the fronts at 180* . This was after a cool down lap and a little time lapse but the delta between the two is the important figure. I used temp strips then to see what the temps were really getting up to. I recorded over 600* on the rears. Consistent with the purple and blue colors on the rear rotors. Fronts barely got to 300* Baically what happens is the rears get into a good range and work like they are designed to do. At that point they take over the work of the fronts and get even hotter. When really hot, the grip on teh rears is so much more that even when the remote bias is put fully on front, my rears were still gripping before the fronts. I swapped the pads, tried a fresh set and it was still the same when under heavy braking. (heavy I mean 120MPH + on full threshold braking on a hot CA track of about 135* track surface temp. Normal for here) I could just not get any consistent stability under full braking.
DP35 had much the same issue. He swapped the front master cylinder for a smaller diameter one, putting more PSI to the fronts. He makes some adjustments to the bias when hot and he get's his dialed in on track. (Darin can outbrake any Atom out there in my opinion) I tried a slightly different approach. I swapped the front rotors to run "backwards" thereby having the ventilated disc vanes pick up the cooling air from the outside of the disk as opposed to the inside when installed right. This reduces the cooling on the fronts and lets them get hotter. I also installed Hawk DTC-70 compounds on the fronts. I have a set of Pagid 4-2-2 on the rears for now. I will further experiment with Hawks for the rear but with a compound closer to the Pagid 4-2-2. (I prefer to keep the same manufacturer of pad on the car) However, it works very good with the time I have on it so far. I am not leaving much braking on the table. I feel it is stable and I am not leaving the rears with less work than they should be getting.
A few weeks back I locked up the rears at WS coming down the front straight. I went into the skid pad area at over 90MPH sideways. My bias was 100% on the fronts and I had no adjustment left. It was not pleasant with plenty of concrete walls to hit. The difference in braking now is huge.

[bolus]

Seems weird that it would still cause pad problems on such a light car.  Do these types of pads fail on higher weight cars?

how about a carbon rotor on the back?  Brembro is planning on mass producing them to bring down cost

[Terry Kennedy]

[quote="CalScot"]
My Atom is a UK Atom. Alcons were shipped from the UK so they are the exact same as you have.
I installed them with new master cylinders as well. 0.700" front and rear. Pagid blue 4-2-2 pads.
[/quote]

Do the Alcons on your UK Atom use the same 1203 pad shape that Brammo "Race" Alcons use? Catalog (PDF), Drawing

I don't know if they're available in the shape you need, but Pagid shows an RS15 compound which seems to be grippier than the RS14 (chart here). Unfortunately the chart doesn't label the friction axis, but compared to RS4-2-2 they seem to be grippier (is that a word?) all around:

RS-4-2:
Cold 0.40 
At 100°C  0.42
At 300°C  0.43
Max (@ 550°C)  0.46
Constant working temperature: 350 â?? 600°C
Max temperature for short period only: 650°C

RS-4-2-1 (Chart shows RS4-2-1 and RS-4-2-2 as the same symbol)
Cold  0.36 
At 100°C 0.38
At 300°C  0.42
Max at (@ 500°C) 0.45
Constant working temperature: 300 â?? 500°C
Max temperature for short period only: 550°C

RS-15:
Cold  0.50 
At 100°C  0.57
At 300°C  0.54
Max at (@ 600°C) 0.62
Constant working temperature: 400 â?? 800°C
Max temperature for short period only: 900°C

[CalScot]

[quote="Terry Kennedy"]
[quote="CalScot"]
My Atom is a UK Atom. Alcons were shipped from the UK so they are the exact same as you have.
I installed them with new master cylinders as well. 0.700" front and rear. Pagid blue 4-2-2 pads.
[/quote]

Do the Alcons on your UK Atom use the same 1203 pad shape that Brammo "Race" Alcons use? Catalog (PDF), Drawing

I don't know if they're available in the shape you need, but Pagid shows an RS15 compound which seems to be grippier than the RS14 (chart here). Unfortunately the chart doesn't label the friction axis, but compared to RS4-2-2 they seem to be grippier (is that a word?) all around:

RS-4-2:
Cold 0.40 
At 100°C  0.42
At 300°C  0.43
Max (@ 550°C)  0.46
Constant working temperature: 350 â?? 600°C
Max temperature for short period only: 650°C

RS-4-2-1 (Chart shows RS4-2-1 and RS-4-2-2 as the same symbol)
Cold  0.36 
At 100°C 0.38
At 300°C  0.42
Max at (@ 500°C) 0.45
Constant working temperature: 300 â?? 500°C
Max temperature for short period only: 550°C

RS-15:
Cold  0.50 
At 100°C  0.57
At 300°C  0.54
Max at (@ 600°C) 0.62
Constant working temperature: 400 â?? 800°C
Max temperature for short period only: 900°C

[/quote]
Yes, these are the same pads. The Pagid rep said the RS 15 is available but would be too much for the front brakes on my car causing lock ups I was willing to try them but they were not off the shelf and had to be ordered from Germany as they had none in stock.

I discovered it is normal for race Porsche Carrera's to have different Pagid Pads front and rear because of much the same issue. Typically Pagid Orange on the rears and Blues on the front's based on what I could find.

I am looking at keeping the Hawk pads because they are dirt cheap in comparison to the Pagids. DTC-70's up front are very aggresive. Shinoo got me them as demo's and I like them a lot. At night under hard braking, they shed off many glowing particles which make for a spectacular show when stopping. 

I am sure I took pictures of the toasted rear Alcon pads which I will post if I can find them.

[Karl]

[quote="McFred"]
I bead blasted the end of my oil dipstick; it's pretty easy to read now.  Also, the engine is tilted in the atom (as compared to their normal homes inside civics and integras), so it needs to be filled above the indicated mark on the stick.
[/quote]

I find the dipstick to be hard to read, even after cross-hatching with a file.  I'm also using the lighter-colored Red Line 5W-30.  McFred, if your dipstick has a twist in the end of it (between two holes), it has already been modified by Brammo to give the correct reading.

[Colin H]

[quote="Monza"]

With Standard wheel sizes, smoothest R888 and best factory specification it is impossible to exceed 1.3 /1.4 regular lateral g whatever the driver is.

[/quote]

Unless you have front and rear wings!
Circulating the track slowly while running in the engine with A048's (the worst track tyres I have ever experienced), my car was pushing up to 1.43 lateral g's. The worrying factor if you look at the graph, the oil pressure starts to dive with anything over 0.5g's.
It is scary to think what it will push with full slicks under race conditions?

[Monza]

aerofoil : of course Colin .
If you want to try something before adding baffld sump or accusump, push oil level 5 mm up the max and test again. It will not solve all because you have aerofoils, but it helps. You can ask Tom ... but he is in holidays at the moment.

[Colin H]

we are doing the baffles already, knowing that we are going to run the slicks!
I'm hoping that the baffles and the extra oil will be enough and try avoid having to add the Acusump for time and space reason!
We practice Thursday & Friday and are praying for dry weather so we can properly test before the race on Saturday!