K Series Oil Pressure - Data Logging in a Race Car (Rebooted for the new forum)

[CharlesElliott]

Following on from recent discussions about mechanical oil pressure gauges to replace electronic, I'm reposting data collected from a race car with a quality electronic sender / gauge relating to oil pressure. The original was rendered meaningless in the forum migration.

The car is a 1.6, 120bhp K series with an Apollo, wet sump on Yoko A048R tyres. The aim is to be much more scientific than trying to watch a damped gauge (electronic or mechanical) as you go round a roundabout.

Here is a picture of Brands Hatch Indy, the start/finish of the lap being indicated by the red marker.

Now, this is a trace of lateral g, speed and oil pressure over one lap (pressure is in psi). You can see that it varies between about 24 and 85 psi over a single lap.   

This is a trace of the circuit coloured by oil pressure - blue being low and red being high. The lowest value in each sector is indicated. This is a pictorial version of exactly the same data in the trace above.

This is an X-Y graph of a single lap - lateral G against pressure. You can see that left hand turns have little impact on pressure when compared with right hand turns. 

Finally, you can see a slightly rough and ready cut of the lap that produced the above data. Whilst not all the sensors are plugged into the virtual dash, it gives you an idea of exactly what is going on and you can see oil psi in the lower right. 

[Golf Juliet Tango]

Excellent Charles. 

The third of your graphs is particularly interesting looking at the speed of recovery of pressure.  Druids is clearly critical.

The important question as far as I am concerned is: At what level does the lower pressure become critical or over what period does a particular level of lowered pressure make an important difference?  I expect the problem is gradual and progressive, so critical points are difficult to determine.

[John Vine]

Many thanks for posting that.  Very interesting.

JV