Yeah the spin main block is scrap to us- it could be saved with some effort and a line home, but we choose not to do that in any situation. As more of this happens, it may become a more common thing.
I’m curious, if you’re sleeping the block, why does the gouge matter? Surely it’s not so deep that sleeves wouldn’t eliminate it?
Re our philosophy on sleeves vs. doing it the correct way ;p, it’s your engine and your call brother! There are absolutely a lot of companies who have had success doing it. Peter is more against sleeping than I am, but I am also the one who designed a 1000whp capable twin screw supercharger for the S65 behind his back
: our opinion is that for N.A., a properly done Alusil refinishing is superior. But I personally will concede that a well done sleeved block, while sub optimal, is a solid option. I think a lot of the biases that race shops have supporting sleeved builds is that Alusil as a little more of an unknown as compared to something that works in so so so many racing applications. Why mess with the recipe that works for them? If that’s the shop you want to work with, and they are more comfortable with sleeving, then asking them to do Alusil reconditioning is a fools errand. I think you made a good choice there.
As far as accusumps are concerned, we as an organization have not- Peter is of the mindset that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing in the best possible way. As a result of this, we either sell daily dry dumps, or we use the OEM oiling system. One of our engine builders, on the other hand, has been building racing engines for ~ 30 years in every discipline of racing. He has done a lot of builds with accusumps, and says that as long as expectations are realistic and that the plumbing/design is done well , they can be a great solution.
The big thing that you have to accept is that an accusump is a stop gap for oil starvation, not a solution. Your oil pump will likely be consuming a liter or more per second at 7000 RPM (that is not an exact number, I do not know the actual flow rate of the pump off the top of my head) and so if you have a 3 liter accusump, that can empty in as little as three seconds.
Add to that, if the pickup is in fact injecting air under high lateral acceleration, it causes more issue than simple loss of pressure. It also causes aeration of the oil, which disrupts the wedge, dramatically decreasing hydraulic protection.
It’s definitely a worthy insurance policy, especially if the issue isn’t the pickup sucking air, and is instead a lack of fluid flow in certain situations.
There are so so so many moving parts on this topic, so many variables, so much complexity. It could be as simple as the pickup not being sufficiently submerged, or it could be something else entirely.
I have my hypothesis, but it’s half baked at this point and will require significant research to determine if it is correct or not.