Question for Mike and Eric
 

On the BOSS BIRD, do you heat the oil to remove air from it prior to your initial fire-up of the engine. Cold oil typically has lots of air in it.
Just wondering what process you use prior to initial fire-up of the engine with your oil system.

A Pre-race "fireup" of the engine might remove some of the air.

Would be nice if you could pre-heat the oil and then add it to the oil reservoir prior to the run. Smokey Yunick did this on NASCAR engines when he added additional oil (FOR A REASON).

Tom V.

Excellent question! We've discussed adding a heater to the dry sump tank. The oil is really thick when it's cold and one theory is that some our bearing damage happens during the burnout when the flow isn't as good. If we do that, I doubt that you'll see us using a torch.

Eric

Torch would be a bad idea...it might melt the plastic. :D

My friend has run a pan heater since 90's
It's a Moroso.
He plugs in night before racing. Think it's regulated around 170.

Is it a blanket on the outside or a heating element submerged into the oil? Manufacturer and p/n if possible. (Note: question answered.......already found it online)

Thx,
Eric

On outside of pan. He broke a be rod once because too cold. So.... Now his min temp is what BME told him.

Moroso also has an immersion heater that looks ideal for our tank. $77 from Summit.

Part # 23980

Thanks for the tip.

Eric

Thats normal for fracker racers that run DEEP into the night. I have a heater for the water but haven't installed it yet.



GTO George

Eric, do you guys use Wizards warehouse for any parts...great source for nitro and funny car parts....plus they send you cookies at Xmas..lol

http://wizardswarehouse.com/products

All sorts of oil heaters out there. Its done all the time in industry. Hydraulic units regularly have heaters in the tank to keep the moister out.
BTW, that photo Tom showed, one of the dumbest things I have seen in awhile. Oxy/Acl torches are 7,200 deg. Simple propane torch would have been better, less than half the temp. If you would have held that oxy/acl torch in one place it would have burnt a hole through the can in less than 2 sec. Then you have a problem.
I dont like being a ball of fire.
Smokeys guys did that ? He was one of the best, but man that is old school.

It might be 7200 degrees if he had the air handle down on the torch but he is using only the acl side of the torch and the flame is about 4" away from the can, (according to Smokey). No different than using a Butane torch. Plastic Bottles might be a bit more difficult, LOL!

Personally my question was to Eric and Mike was on heating the oil prior to actual engine run on the track. Not questioning how smart Smokey was. But he was Dam* smart.

We used a "in the pan" oil warmer on a couple of Egg Delivery Semi trucks when I was in college. Worked very well and used little 110 electricity. Eric, The Moroso Oil Heater is exactly what we had in the two delivery trucks.

Tom V.

Since you have been modifying your dry sump oil reservoir anyway, adding the heater would be simple for you guys.

EVERY DYNO ENGINE run at Ford Research uses a Oil Cart with a heater prior to fire-up each morning unless the engine is doing 24 hr durability runs. Dyno engine use the heater, pre-production engines in "Mules" use a conventional oil system but remote oil heaters like the Moroso deal when testing at Thompson Lake in -50F degree temps.

Clearly you have no understanding of of
Oxygen and acl tom... There is clearly oxygen in that mix.. If you had ever use such a setup you would know that.. Its ok to be wrong...you just have to admit it..

We get a few things from Wizards but not enough to get on the cookie list. We buy more from Good Vibrations.

Eric

I just checked and the solubility of air in oil is about 7 cc air/100 cc oil which was surprising. Solubility decreases with increasing temperature of course. No wonder TF cars heat the oil.

A very tiny amount of preheat oxygen added to the aci by the pre-heat needle valve.
The Main oxygen valve is wide open but with the cutting lever not depressed so very little oxygen is used. A very tiny amount in fact.
You can see Smokey's hand is nowhere near the cutting air lever.

I have personally owned a Torch and bottles for over 40 years. Swapped out the bottles several times, Hoses twice. Regulators once. Still works great.

So you jumped to a conclusion which is wrong. You even know that torches have a pre-heat needle valve on them Scott?

When I talk about air I typically speak of the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, I do not refer to the tiny tiny percent of other chemicals.
But this post was about getting rid of the air in oil, not a chemistry lesson for Scott.

Tom V.

Ag, Correct 7% is not a number to ignore.

It doesn't really matter Tom...you said he was only using the acl. Side of the torch.. Anyone that has a clue knows the difference.. Acl.is a lazy orange flame with lots of soot emitted..depressing the "lever" is only needed for cutting.. Its ok.. You were wrong.. Also, it took you a while to Google the info you regurgitated.. Better luck next time b.s.ing.. Back to the topic at hand..

Right Back on topic, My Topic, stay out of MY threads.
Clear enough for you.
Tom V.

Sorry Tom for getting your thread off track. But I will clear up a few things, as I am doing a bunch of of oxy/acl cutting to nite. Someone on day shift took to tip out of the plasma cutter. I would MUCH rather use it.
I was a bit off on the temp. Its 6300 deg. Oxy/acl cutting is actually the same thing as the rusting process, only much faster. Its the rapid oxidizing of ferrous metal (contains iron) with pure oxygen after it is pre heated to 1500 deg. Actually "burning"the steel.
You basic torch is the most useful piece of equipment you can have in any shop. You can do so much with it and some things only it can do.

Back to topic, heat your oil up.

Agree with the burning of the steel vs melting of the steel which happens with the Oxygen lever depressed, Melts and blows away the material. But as I said earlier, the issue is that 7% air in the oil (when cold) is not a good thing for any high speed/high power engine under a load. The water heaters in the radiator hose are ok as they maintain a given block water temp and when the engine is fired that helps raise the oil temp quickly.

The dedicated oil heaters in the pan allow the oil to be heated even before the engine is fired..

What Smokey did was his deal, oxy/acl cutting tip torch, etc and how he used it.
I assume he could quickly raise the temp in both cans of oil by never heating one can continuously or actually burning the oil in that can. He also may have not had a lot of time to heat the oil before the car's pit stop. Eric and Mike should have plenty of time to prep the oil before the actual pass (if they decide to go that direction). Their call.

Tom V.

Although the Boss Bird has no coolant, other forms of racing do use a heat exchange unit hooked into the coolant system that preheats the whole engine, and the oil before a cold engine is initially fired. Links: http://www.hotshotengineheater.com/, http://www.hotheadheater.com/tech/

A trip through the pits at a local sprint car race, one will see the cars plugged into a heat unit that brings the engine up to temperature before the cars are pushed off. Along with bringing the oil up to temp the loose clearances would be tightened up before the engine turns over initially. The preheated oil should help lubricate better by being thinner and less aeration as pointed out by Tom V.

Previously sprint car engines were heated up by one of two ways. Push started before the races and allowed to run to bring up the engine heat, or a kerosene powered torpedo heater was aimed at the engine and used to bring up the heat in the engine through air convection. The current method of using the coolant being heated by an outside heat source is said to help immensely in engine longevity. Not washing down the cylinders by idling for extended periods and diluting the oil with fuel to put heat in the engines should definitely help ring seal to last longer, along with purging the oil of air pockets as is pointed out in this topic.

Preheating race engines should be a win win situation.

I would think anybody using heavier viscosity oil should use a heater. Especially when air temp is low. We ran a large heat pad on the oil tank and a smallish pad on the pan. My Comp engine used 5-20w and was fastest with oil at 170-180° and coolant at 140° at launch.

This was in 2000-2003, with specific clearances and spun up to 9200. If this doesn't apply to your program, use what works for you.

Thank You Sirrotica and Tiger Paw for your additional VALUABLE information added to this thread.

Tom V.

I do not know about Mike and Eric's engine. But on some all aluminum engines running a tight lash cam in very cold weather you need to preheat the engine just so you are able to start it because of negative valve lash.

Stan

I have a question for Mike and Eric....A lot of The injected Nitro dragsters run cold fuel and when I say cold I mean below 0ish degrees Fahrenheit......do you guys run cold fuel on the boss bird?

We have done a bit of experimenting with Alcohol in the past with the pro mods with decent results.

Just wondering if you guys have with your nitro motor.

Good Question, looking forward to reading about that side of it.
Tom V.

I'm guessing they probably run more of a straight 70w oil.. Possibly Brad Penn if its still available..
Do you guys change your oil after a warm up in the pits Eric? I know it can get very diluted with fuel inveryshort order.. I actually used to save my old deluted oil in a vented and filtered drum and let the alcohol evaporate off... Running on a shoe string budget, it was nessasary..lol ran the same main bearings for 2 years..only issue I ever had was the plugger oil pump giving up on a start up.. We ran around 140psi..with .005 clearances on the mains and .oo4 on the rods.

Great Post, Thanks Scott for the additional info.
How long did it take for the alcohol to evaporate off?

Tom V.

Race Day, Race Day, Race Day! Put down some BIG NUMBERS Mike and Eric!
Have fun too!

Tom V.