Look what I found

I am replacing my sump because it has a hole in it so I dropped it down and found this arrangement… It is a swiveling oil pickup secured by mounting to the front and center main bearing caps. I know Dave Bean has something similar in his catalog. Probably overkill on a street engine.


It’s not overkill. It’s well designed and works as advertised, even for a street Elan that is driven like intended. The windage tray helps reduce the pumping losses and the swinging pickup keeps your oil pump and bearings well supplied.

If you don’t want it, please let me know. I’ll take it off your hands.

Regards,
Dan

i would take two please, and maybe a third in case one fails

does it follow lateral forces? going around a LH corner, will it swap to the left side of the sump? and visa versa!

According to Bean it follows centrifugal force and gravity hence it follows the oil.

A nice setup and the first time I have actually seen a photograph of the mythical Dave Bean swinging pickup

Unfortunately while Bean has it in the catalogue it has not been available for over 30 years which is a pity.

cheers
Rohan

Besides the very cool oil pick up, I?ve noted the well done safety wiring job. Somebody built an engine to good specs.

Obviously, this has become a weld the hole in the sump and replace. I also see if you’ve managed to get the sump completely off the engine, you must have a removable crossbrace. I’ll bet there are other trick bits to your car.
Oh, and if you decide to go back to stock oil pick-up, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands, I’ll even figure out how to pick it up. But I really think you should keep it for yourself. You might also figure out how to copy it and make a bunch of copies.

Roger

I also have it on one of my Elans. I am not sure it is the Bean version as this car was built by Spyder in the UK. But it is a swinging pickup. Next time I have it off the car, I will look into having it reproduced.

Tony V

Is a baffled pan as adequate
For fun street, actually. The motto here is. Find out where the limits are, and start from there.

Those with a loss of oil pressure complex, have you seen this type of thing, seems a very simple solution.
demon-tweeks.com/uk/canton- … er-500619/

Roger
I tried patching the hole a couple of times with epoxy. It would hold for a while but eventually the epoxy cracked and would leak again profusely. I added the removable brace, a piece of steel channel from McMaster car that adds .9 pounds of weight :frowning: I have a used sump I’m putting on but just realized my 711 block requires wider rubber strips to seal the ends of sump. I’m going to leave “swinger” in place for the time being.
Chris :slight_smile:

Thou most dont realize
Everyone wants a ?swinger?

Seems a very expensive solution… but for racing, fine.

summitracing.com/int/parts/ctr-24-006

They are quality
1/2 the price of the UK/EU for Canada

Not if you cost in engine removal, sump modification etc. it requires just a single connection to the oil gallery and you?re done.

A standard Elan (don’t know about +2’s) when cornering even moderately hard will lose oil pressure. I have had the sumps on two of my Elan’s baffled by NS Engineering, it’s a lot cheaper than an engine build.

Chris,

I finally enlarged your photos so I could confirm that you have a toothed belt (timing belt) external drive to your water pump/ charging device. Did you do that or previous owner?

Any way, is that a crack in the windage tray, shows at about the 8 o’clock position of the swivel pick-up. Back in the mid-80s, I built a couple of windage trays for the S3-SS I was restoring from ground up and the +2S that I had just put back together. I pretty much quit driving the +2 in 1986/7 and in 1999 I took that engine apart and the tray had massive cracks , pretty much lieing in the bottom of the pan. I took the SS bottom end apart in 2010 and it was the same.

So, I did a new windage tray and modified the oil pick-up too. I decided the pick-up was too high off the floor of the sump so I added a cone pick-up that was provided by an old rope seal set-up. Then the car went to Florida where all the roads are straight, so I really don’t know whether my modification worked. I’ve got photos on my old computer, that I should be able to see in another week or so.
Roger