Piston oilers

[Greg D]

Performed a search and got no hits for piston oilers. Can't believe this hasn't been a topic here.

Most of the drag racing piston oilers I have seen are nothing more than orifices drilled in the block that emit oil all the time. The OEM's use piston oilers that only emit oil at higher oil pressures/RPM. I think they are spring loaded.

I see several OEM's are using them and claiming HP/Tq gains. Anyone with first hand experience?

[PackardV8]

Interesting subject. FWIW, many of the first generation OHV8s had a slot in the rod parting line which sprayed oil on the piston skirts and cylinder walls when it lined up with the crank oil holes. Not sure why this went away in later designs.

GM just spent the money to add pressure jets off the mains to oil under the pistons on the supercharged Northstar V8 in their $100k Cadillacs.

Please direct me to the sources for OEMs hp/tq gains claims. Would like to learn more. All I have read is it enables the pistons to withstand higher boost and or compression when run hard for extended periods.

thnx, jv.

[Stevespeed]

Mike Laws makes piston oiler kits. Used to be at BLP but I believe he has his own gig going right now. Might try him for info.

[ccb]

The blp kits that I've seen, you drill through the mains which causes a drop of oil pressure at the mains. Making external oil lines in the pan that spray the pistons are the way to go. Also you can control the oil temp being spray at them too. Just like spring oilers for the valve springs

[hotrod]

Oil squirters, that squirt oil on the bottom of the piston crown are used in some of the import engines, mostly the turbocharged high output engines.

They are spring loaded ball check valves so they do not crack until oil pressure is up to a set minimum. They do have a down side too, in that more than one has been known to come loose and go adrift in the oil pan, which obviously causes a serious oil pressure drop in the oil passages.

Mitsubishi and Subaru have both used them but at least on the current engines, Subaru no longer installs them in the U.S. distribution engines.
I believe they are still available over the counter as replacement parts if someone wanted to use them in a different engine.

Larry

[Greg D]

Please direct me to the sources for OEMs hp/tq gains claims. Would like to learn more. All I have read is it enables the pistons to withstand higher boost and or compression when run hard for extended periods.

upercharged Northstar V8

I read that the piston oilers cooled the pistons enough to allow the engineers to advance the timing on the Norstar engine to gain 12 ft lbs of torque.

[MadBill]

The direct injection turbo Ecotec in the Solstice GXP uses oilers that appear to squirt into some kind of chamber in the piston...

[PackardV8]

Thanks for the clarification - using the same terminology is key to understanding each other. As might be expected, piston oilers don't make additional horsepower, but provide cooling for pistons so the horsepower/torque already there in the supercharged Northstar can be used for extended periods of time without engine damage.

Guess we could agree adding a piston oiler to an engine already able to run at maximum output for the required time without piston damage would not add any horsepower.

One thing to remember, squirting oil to cool the piston crown requires more oil to be pumped at pressure and brings more heat down with it. the oil cooler has to get larger to handle the load and the oil pump has to add volume.

thnx, jv.

[Greg D]

Guess we could agree adding a piston oiler to an engine already able to run at maximum output for the required time without piston damage would not add any horsepower.

Absolutley, but then you could build the engine even stouter to take advantage of the piston oilers and what they can do.

[ze doktor]

the nissan RB series engine also uses oil squirters to great effect.

[backpurge]

The oilers also add weight (the oil itself) though to the rotating assembly. Some Honda/Acura motors come equiped with them stock and a lot of engine builders remove them because they've seen more of a gain from the reduction in weight.

[Keith Morganstein]

Performed a search and got no hits for piston oilers. Can't believe this hasn't been a topic here.

Most of the drag racing piston oilers I have seen are nothing more than orifices drilled in the block that emit oil all the time. The OEM's use piston oilers that only emit oil at higher oil pressures/RPM. I think they are spring loaded.

I see several OEM's are using them and claiming HP/Tq gains. Anyone with first hand experience?

Search for them as "piston cooling jets"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search

[Manic Mechanic]

Performed a search and got no hits for piston oilers. Can't believe this hasn't been a topic here.

I've seen it once:
viewtopic.php?t=1534&highlight=mitsubishi

I've got a Whipple type supercharger kit for my '01 Silverado with the 8100 type big block. I've been considering adding piston cooling for insurance against detonation with the Hyperutectic pistons but don't know if it's worth the teardown. If I knew it would allow a lower octane pump fuel I might go for it. The compression would be about 9.1 and boost would be 5-7 lbs. intercooled.

Vernon

[Mike Laws]

Mike Laws makes piston oiler kits. Used to be at BLP but I believe he has his own gig going right now. Might try him for info.

Hello Stevespeed:

I'm still here at BLP - Dad (Bo) keeps trying to run me off - but I'm like an old dog and keep finding my way back home!

Here is the quick version of our piston squirter story: We designed (and received a patent on) the method of drilling through the main journal bulkhead, into the base of each cylinder in order to send a stream of oil to the bottom of each piston. This was back in 1993/94 when I was approached by a Ford NASCAR Team to help with wrist-pin seizure/failure. (This is when the teams were first getting creative in utilizing crankcase vacuum to reduce oil wrap-up. "Vacuuming" the crankcase is/was definitely beneficial for HP - however it also removed the "oil-fog" that was keeping the wrist pins lubricated.) So we machined a block for the squirters and the problem was immediately solved. Another beneficial byproduct of oiling the underside of the piston dome is that heat is flowed out of the piston (dome). A portion of the intake charge in all IC engines is used to cool the piston - therefore when we cooled the pistons from underneath, we could then reduce the amount of fuel to the combustion chamber. This resulted in increased fuel mileage and also allowed for a more aggressive tune-up; so it was one of those rare "win-win" modifications.

For several years; NASCAR would not allow a separate oil squirter system (plate between the block/oil pan, squirters installed in the pan, etc.) - however they have since rescinded that rule. As another person stated, utilizing the squirters with external plumbing has the advantage of utilizing "cooled" oil to spray onto the pistons.

The piston-squirter kits remain a popular item for us, particularly with supercharged/turbocharged engines and those utilizing crankcase vacuum.

Thanks.

ML

[Tycho]

How about windage with squirters? Or is the amount of oil being sprayed by them negligible as far as that is concerned?