In the past, I’ve used one of the brightest lights on the market mounted on the dash in front of me to warn of low oil psi. I was always surprised when wathcing video that the light would flicker and I never noticed it. I’m just too busy concentrating to register the light. Thinking about installing a marine warning buzzer instead. I could put it on a toggle so that it won’t alarm in the paddock (that’d be annoying). Any thoughts?
Anyone use a buzzer rather than a light?
greydog
#2
It would have to be loud to hear, but maybe you could rig a hammer over the head to get your attention.
cosm3os
#3
No shit. I had an instructor back in the day that would rap on my head when it appeared I was losing concentration.
Ranger
#4
I have 2 sets of LEDs on top of the dash. One a little left of driver center and one a little to the right. Each “set” contains 5 or 6 LEDs. The idea of having them on both sides of my center is that I couldn’t fail see one of them no matter which way I was looking.
Before I settled on these particular LEDs, I bought a whole bunch of different types of lights and tested them all to see which seemed to be brightest.
Soon after I installed the 2 sets of very bright LEDs aimed right at me, I turned on the car at night to take it out of the garage. Not expecting it, I was suddenly blinded by blazing red LEDs attempting to burn out my retinas. They’re pretty darn bright.
Somewhere here there is an old thread with a pic.
Later edit. The link to the pic is in this thread. http://www.spece30.com/forum/41-electrical-gauges-and-sensors/37534-gauge-upgrade-project#37542
cosm3os
#5
In the spirit of SE30 and over engineering everything and having redundancies for redundancies, I think I’ll do both!
In my business, we call it belts and suspenders!
FishMan
#6
I think the buzzer is overkill for oil pressure, but would be useful for low coolant pressure. I only want lights and buzzers that are going to trigger some action on my part like a shift light or a low coolant pressure light in which I will actually trigger me to actually stop the car. Oil pressure is good to know, but not something that I’m going to react to unless it’s a catastrophic oiling system failure. If you intend to stop in the event of low oil pressure, the buzzer might be necessary, but I don’t think most are going to stop for intermittent low pressure like you will see during high G starvation. If you blow an oil line and your name isn’t Scott Gress, the corner workers should black flag you and hopefully you’ll notice the plume of white smoke in your rear view mirror. Other lights and buzzers are only distractions… It seems that a low oil pressure light is useful during video analysis so you can see what situations cause the car to experience starvation and something you would want to look at while you aren’t racing. The best solution is some sort of data logger which allows you to compare your engine parameters to previous races and therefore allow you to see changes in your engine condition.
RRhodes
#7
Stupid newbie questions: Wouldn’t you want to know if your engine has suffered a catastrophic loss of oil pressure before it in turn becomes a catastrophic loss? There are a couple of things I can think of you could do to eliminate the flicker problem, but even then I’m curious why it’s okay to suffer even a temporary loss of oil pressure to the point where you trip the low OPS threshold.
cosm3os
#8
You’re not missing anything. This was the first time I had ever heard it suggested that loss of OP isn’t something you want to attend to immediately (shut of the motor!).
As for the temp loss, there’s scrapers and baffles. After that it appears there’s not much you can do or worry about–it’s not a total loss, it just drops below 30.
cosm3os
#9
Here’s what I’m talking about: http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=11377
Don’t know the db, but my experience with my parent’s boat is its pretty loud. Wouldn’t have to be screeching–we all know how sensitive we are to odd sounds in the cabin.
Ranger
#11
When I completely lost OP several times while playing with an Accusump and no crankscraper, I immed put the car in neutral, coasted off the track and shut off the engine. I did that a half dozen times before the bearings had to be replaced.
I never really did figure out the cause of those problems. Somehow I created a perfect storm. My theory is that my Craigslist Accusump was defective somehow. I had pressure gauges all over and I could see the oil pump sucking air and the Accusump pumping oil. But after several turns in a row the sump would be empty and then OP would drop to zero.
FishMan
#12
You definitely want to know if you have catastrophic loss of oil pressure, I’m just saying it will be obvious and it’s uncommon. If you grenade the engine by throwing a rod or spinning a bearing, you won’t need a buzzer or light to understand your engine has problems. Otherwise, the only points of failure in the oiling system are the oil filter, filter housing, oil lines and cooler. If any of these items fail, you’ll have a giant plume of smoke in the rear view mirror from oil spraying onto the hot exhaust. Again, these failures are rare and no indicator is needed if they do happen.
Oil starvation is a different story and if your oiling system isn’t put together correctly, it’s going to happen. On my first two engines I had oil starvation issues, but never once stopped for a flickering low oil pressure light. On my current engine, my oil pan is set up correctly and I don’t have any oil starvation issues. Besides, oil starvation isn’t going to instantaneously lead to catastrophic failure. You’ll notice lower peak oil pressure, followed by extremely low pressure at idle then possibly rod knock or maybe a spun bearing.
When my second engine was on its’ last leg, it made ~ 4psi oil pressure at idle and I assumed it was time for rebuild. Turns out I was right; after tearing the motor down the main bearings were grooved like Ruffles potato chips. I was surprised it would still run, but it did.
Unless you have some KraZ oiling system like Ranger has tried in the past with valves, accusumps, several feet of hose, etc, you won’t experience anything more than brief starvation in hard left handers. I’m not sure what he’s running in new #6, but old #6 (RIP) has the exact same oil pan setup by Metric Mechanic that I’m running and it works extremely well. If your oiling system is put together properly (baffle and windage tray or scraper), you won’t experience any problems at all. If you don’t have a proper oiling system, your are headed for disaster and a buzzer/light is going to activate every time you turn left. If you do have a proper baffle setup, why add the distraction of the buzzer? I guess you could set it to go off at ~8 psi just to signal a blown line or filter, but it just seems over kill to me…
Here’s the bottom line. Many racers have gone several seasons with nothing more than a crankscraper and had no engine problems. I’ve even heard of a few that don’t even have a scraper. A decent condition engine should last several seasons with a proper pan setup. It seems to me that the M20 is relatively robust and running in stock form and engine speeds doesn’t overly stress the components.
cosm3os
#13
So, what psi switch would you guys recommend that would give me sufficient warning, but maybe not flicker in the lefties? I used a 20 psi in my E36.
jlevie
#14
That is a tough question to answer as the condition of the engine, what has been done to reduce starvation, what then minimum engine speed is, and the oil used are all a part of the equation.
My built engine, on a 100deg day, makes 70psi at 6k. It has a Paul Poore pan and IJ crank scraper and I use Brad Penn 20w50 and a Mobil-1 filter. The lowest pressure I’ve ever seen while racing has been right at 30psi in a corner where the engine speed fell to 3k (missed a shift).
I have my IQ3 programmed to turn on a warning light if the pressure is lower than 30psi and the engine is below 3k and another light if the engine is below 3k and the pressure is less than 20psi (essentially an idle pressure warning) I’ve never see those lights come on when racing.
Fred42
#15
FWIW… I knew from my human factors colleagues that apparent motion is really good at getting your attention, and two lights flashing alternately at the right rate give the appearance of motion. So my oil light is a couple of superbright leds using (don’t laugh) a model train crossing flasher circuit. When I lost OP at turn 5 at Roebling I noticed right away.
The really loud buzzer should work too.
jlevie
#18
Alternating blinking lights works, but so does just a blinking light. Fast strobes are more effective than slower strobes.
Fred42
#19
Hey, I think that you’re on to something with this motion idea.[/quote]
I noticed her!
Jim: it wasn’t the strobe effect I was going for but the apparent movement back and forth between the light positions. Now that you mention it I need to get back in there and play with the flash rate…
turbo329is
#20
Hey, I think that you’re on to something with this motion idea.[/quote]
I think they used those as turn and slip indicators in the Chinooks in Hawaii.