...Is it necessary/recommended? I've decided to go with this for my car - If I can find a nice Kawasaki ZX-12R Ninja. One notch below a Hayabusa...

I figured the least would be to use an Accusump, but should I go all out and dry-sump it? If so, anyone know who specialises in supplying specific components for this (set-up and this make of engine)?

Car would be used for both road and track.

Thanks...

IMHO ZX12 is a much better engine than the Hyperbus. An excellent choice.
Dry sumping not my area of expertise although I do know its expensive...
From what I've seen/read chopped and baffled sump in conjunction with Accusump is more than adequate. Re Stuart Taylors race cars...

John

Dry sumping is really only necessary if you want to do trackdays and wear sticky tyres on the car. Even then its only on some engines you need to do it.

If thats the case then ZX-12 will need dry sumping (as does the Busa and GSXR1000). If you choose R1, Fireblade or ZX-9 then you don't need to worry and you can save yourself £1200.

Cheers

Paul

http://www.accusump.com/

As I understand it ST now dry sump their GSXR1000 based race cars as they have blown a couple up due to oil starvation.

No-one in the RGB runs ZX-12R's or Busa without dry sumping them. However 'blade cars are fine with just a modded sump. So real choice is

Fireblade/R1/Zx-9R ~ £1000

or ZX12-R - £3500 (inc dry sump)
or Busa ~ £4500 ("

For a few extra horses methinks the ZX-12 and Busa ain't worth the extra money.

Cheers

Paul

Thanks all.

My track use would be limited to SOLO/Autocross and a hill-climb or two (not much that goes on here in Canada).

The majority of the cars (regular type of saloons) that run in these races get by with well-prepared wet-sumps, but considering how much more capable a car like the Locost is compared to these, I figured my BEC Locost should have some sort-of oiling assistance (Accusump or dry sump) right from the start.

For those of you that have suggested R1/Fireblade/ZX-9... Why? Do these come with dry-sump systems as stock? Power-wise, would it be the same as (my original choice) the ZX-12R Ninja?

Peter,

No, those engines (R1, blade, zx9) don't come with stock dry sumps.

The reason people have mentioned them as options for you to think about is basically they are much cheaper to buy. R1's can be had for around £1000, while blades and zx9's mite be even cheaper.

The blade and zx9 are the least powerful of these, with around 130 - 145bhp.

The R1 is the pick of the bunch in my view (and is the one i will utilise at the end of this year to install in my hillclimb locost):

The R1 has around 160bhp when it has been set up correctly, does not require dry sumping (a baffled sump and overfill of oil are sufficient).

When comparing the R1 to zx12 or busa the phrase 'bang for buck' comes into play! For £1000 you get a 160bhp R1 whereas, it would be upwards of £2500 for a 175bhp busa/zx12, and then you would also need £1000 of dry sump.

Go for the R1!!!

Cheers,
Oli

For hill climbs and the odd track day on road legal tyres, you won't need a dry sump. There are a lot of Busas out there running with either no oil mods or a baffle plate quite happily.

If you wanted to run very sticky tyres or slicks on a fast track then I think I would like to have mine dry sumped as a precaution although again there are busa cars out there with just a baffle plate running on slicks with no oil problems.

One issue you can have with track use is the oil getting too hot, so make sure you've got a big oil cooler and keep an eye on the temp - anything over 110 C is not good. I think this is where a lot of the problems have come from in the past as a lot of people use the bike oil cooler.

The bike oil cooler is fine if you're running hard on a bike as you'll be doing 100mph plus all the time (Hayabusa bike will do 90 or 100 mph in 1st gear !), but on a car there is less airflow from lower speeds so the cooler is less effective.

Hillclimbs are all over in a minute or so so I guess oil temp won't be a problem !

For occasional track use a wet sump should be OK on a ZX12 but I wouldnt want to run one with sticky tyres on fast high G corners too often with one.

A friend of mine has a ZX12 ST Locost and he's just gone dry sump as he plans on doing more track days. If youre after a modded / baffled sump then I think he still has the Z Cars sump he took off which originally cost £300 but Im sure he'd be open to offers less than half that.
Let me know if youre interested and Ill drop him an email to see if he's still got it.

Chris

So are we saying that if you are going to do any serious racing then maybe an accusump and oil cooler would be required on a blade engine??

Rich.

Nope, different engines have different characteristics. If you want to go racing with a blade you might need an oil cooler (some engines seem to run a lot hotter oil than others) but you certainly dont need any kind of oil surge protection other than maybe a baffle plate.

Chris

thanks for the info Chris, how does the oil cooler fit onto the engine, is it pretty straight forward?

Rich.

No probs.
For the oil cooler you'd usually get a sandwich plate (from somewhere like Think Automotive) which bolts between the oil filter and the block, and this routes the oil to / from the oil cooler, so all pretty straight forward.

Chris

I have been told by the guys at Radical that specialise in the gixer engines (via z-cars) that on a gsxr1100 engine you should not even run a baffled sump as the engine is very sensitive about it's oil (capacity, temparature). All you need to do is overfill it. But on a gsxr1000 engine you definately need a baffled sump for the road and a dry sump for the track.

That shows the different characteristics of different types of engines.

Adam