Oil pump: Spline gear Vs. Reimax Vs. high-pressure oil pump ?

[cobrAA]

Most thread I found was slightly out-dated so i figured that with times, new stuff could mix things up OR feedback on long-term durability of these pumps.

Correct me if I'm wrong,I'm just going by my research found on internet.

STD or N1 oil pump ( can be found for 300$cnd):
The cheapest option you could go with, N1 has slightly higher pressure for higher rpm range but the std gear have 4mm thicker gear.

I personally ran a N1 pump with a collar on a +500whp and was fine with it for about 15k kms but barely did 20 launch and no tracking.

- Reimax gear ( can be found for about 300cnd on rhdjapan +shipping):
Stronger gear, but doesn't really solve the problem of crank clearance and it's not thicker either.. just a stronger material. nothing else.

maybe more realible, but probably not any better than the std/n1 pump in regard of rpm range.

- High pressure oil pump ( greddy, jun, hks) ( can be found for about 1500$ on rhdjapan):

Stronger gear, thicker gear than std but not much. I'm told these oil pump are all the same with different stamp. higher pressure can be a problem without bigger sump because it could suck up too much oil at certains moment. so not sure its a very good thing..

- Nismo oil pump: (can be had for 900$ +shipping)

I'm told its just a N1 pump with reimax gear.

- Tomei Oil pump ( can be had for about 1100$ +shipping)

I'm told this is the best thing for 2 reason: it has the thicker gears of all pump + it's a 3 piece design ( in between with the spline design) that should help reduce the problem of collar clearance .

2) It has variable oil pressure, so you can reduce the pressure so it doesnt empty your sump like the other pump

- Spline design gear type ( can be had for 625aud from spool import and 850ish from supertec):

In theory, its the best design that eliminate the wobble of collar clearance. However, in practice, i emailed spool import they didnt even replied to my email, you never heard of one ppl who ran their spline gear........ hard to know if they are good

Supertec, they claim a few ppl have bought their spline design, they claim a few rb30 and very very high HP machine run them BUT.. i challenge you to find one build thread where someone say he used one of their gear, I couldn't. #2) when asked about these high HP machine, all I found was a picture of a random skyline.. anyone can do that, how about true testimonial from the owner of these cars ? Can't be found.

Nitto, a company I believe that is greatly rated, said that they were working ona design but due to some kind of flaw in the design, the crank could break the gears and for over a year ( if not 2 now!) they are still developping the gears because they are not 100% satisfied with their design.

When asked supertec or spool import, we got a very vague answer on their ''R&D''. At first, i was very keen on buying these type of gears but the more i think about it.. the more i think I wont do it lol.

Whats your take on these?? What would you go for a normal daily-driven car with no extra capacity sump that plans to hit the track now and then?

[r32_nate]

Sub'd, Im building my RB26 this winter, and so far am planning on the Spool RB spline drive setup. Im gonna call them and ask them about any issues they are having, before I actually pull the trigger, but Im interested to see if anyone is running them so far. Just because Tomei has be "doing R&D" for two years, doesnt mean that they have a team of scientists working night and day the whole time on developing this thing. More than likely they are working on other platforms, new designs, and selling current stock of stuff, all while sitting back watching the Spool RB and spertec stuff not sell lol.

[cobrAA]

Sub'd, Im building my RB26 this winter, and so far am planning on the Spool RB spline drive setup. Im gonna call them and ask them about any issues they are having, before I actually pull the trigger, but Im interested to see if anyone is running them so far. Just because Tomei has be "doing R&D" for two years, doesnt mean that they have a team of scientists working night and day the whole time on developing this thing. More than likely they are working on other platforms, new designs, and selling current stock of stuff, all while sitting back watching the Spool RB and spertec stuff not sell lol.

let me know what spool tells you, but i would be very surprise to hear a company say ''yeah yeah we had a few problems with these and they dont sell really good so basicly yeah good luck with them'' so it will probably be like a big marketing pitch lol

and by the way, its not tomei but nitto, and they also admitted they were not working full time on time because pulling the motor each time is not a task done in 2 hours.

[bobbo]

I'm in the same boat as you Alex. I'm pulling my motor shortly primarily to change the pump. One day I wake up and I figure I'll buy an N1, the next day it's a spline drive and the next day it's something different.
I did have an email conversation with a guy from SuperTec but can't find it. I did like what he had to say.
Honestly I think I properly fitted N1 will be just fine. My oem pump has 160kms on it now. I suspect the back plate is loosening off as my pressure seemed slightly lower the last time I drove it.

[cobrAA]

let us know if you find that conversation you had.

I would say that right now i'm aiming for a reimax gear. or the tomei.

The reason is I expect my block to be just fine, so the cost of removing my crankshaft to re-fit another collar will add up to the spline design and, in my case, i might as well pay for a tomei pump. ( i.e: spline gear 700ish.. removing my old crank, fitting the new one ( maybe 200-300), were now at 1000$ish.. tomei can sell for 1100-1200)

hwoever with the reimax, i keep my almost new n1 pump and fit it to my existing collar. job done for about 400$.

[leung23c]

Do single stage wet sump external pump. Problem solved.

I personally would just get a Nitto or Tomei otherwise.

[mistercrow]

hey man, heres my opinion on rb26 gears,pumps, clearence and crank. They are based on my personal opinion/ experience. i have raced and built myself 5 rb26s, and baught 3 oil pumps, and heres what ive learned through the whole process.

Im sorry if some parts are hard to understand, and some units feel hard to gauge where they go, ill do my best.

My first r32 gtr with jun oil pump had 100% stock internals /power.
My second GTR was fully built and had 500 whp.

first of all, the first r32 gtr i baught had a fully stock engine, and i told myself i have to fix the oil pump problem, as i dont want to run a few races and end up buying a new engine because of a failure.

the three failures of eom pump were gear clearence, short crank drive, and oil pump back plate unscrews.

the first time i rebuilt my first rb26, it had the early r32 crankshaft, witch is really poorly designed on the oil drive, it has about a quarter of an inch of drive on the full inch the oil pump gear offers. As i pulled out the inner oil pump gear, you can notice very clearly that wear was shown only on a fraction of the gear and because of a too huge clearence between the crank and the gear it was being abused at the wrong spot and also it was abused in between two gears where the metal was the weakest (so stupid). the clearence between the inner pump gear and crankshaft was 0.021 thousandth witch is way too huge, you can wobble the gear on the crankshaft and be like holy ****, did this woman get 20 kids or something, its rediculous.

when i first started shopping for oil pumps, heres what i found on a forum:

Stock: 47 L/min @ 6000 RPM
Nismo: Nismo claims comparable output to Stock but uses stronger gears.
HKS: 53 L/min @ 6000 RPM (Old Pump, Jun style)
HKS: 65 L/min @ 6000 RPM (New Pump, Tomei style)
Tomei: 57 L/min @ 6000 RPM
JUN: 59 L/min @ 6000 RPM (Calculated using Jun's Claim of +25% of OEM)
Trust: 59 L/min @ 6000 RPM
Reimax: 70 L/min @ 6000 RPM
Nitto: 64.8 L/min @7000

Theres also a very good comparaison site right here:

http://webbersrbguide.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60:oilpumps&catid=46:engine-mechanical&Itemid=22

i got my crankshaft repolished, balenced and the guy who did the job (vilbrequin universel in montreal, amazing guy, amazing shop he only does crankshafts so he knows wtf hes talking about) knew the problems and had crank collars in stock, so before installing one i did some research, ordered my pump and compared once the pump was in my hands.

What i did was shop for a JUN one, as i didnt trust nissan /nismo pumps (with a good reason read later) and the JUN FLOW was only a few more litres/min more than the oem one so no need for restrictors, and found a retailer on ebay who wasnt dumb and had very good buisness with jun and he could answer all my questions, i asked him what clearence between jun oil pump and oil drive what needed for the oil pump gears to be more reliable, he answerd me after speaking to a jun reprisentative that 0,013 thousands was ideal clearence for most reliable setup. so i measured my pump to new crank collar, and luckily enough my clearence was 0.011, it was a bit tighter and thats what i was looking for, installed it and ran it, didnt see any real problems only that my idle oil pressure was too low for my opinion, the stock oil pressure gauge was almost always at the lowest bar on meter. I never had any issue, I dragged the car for a whole summer, did over 100 runs and engine still ran great.

second rb26, I baught a second gtr a year later in june 2013 because it had a built engine and a few goodies i would love to have on my first one, so i baught the car, it was fully built with n1 oil pump/r33 gtr crank, so i told myself heh, should be safe for the whole summer of racing. the oil pressure was good, under boost was perfect too, I drove to the drag strip for the first time, do three races, on the thrid gear shift of my third run, i see my oil light come on, shut the car and told myself what the **** did i just buy. i get off the track on the cars power,because the track monitor told me id have to pay for towing my car 400meters away, so i told him to **** off parked the car, open the oil cap, check, no oil moving anywhere, at all.

****.

tow the car home, pull engine out, get to oil pump, it was an n1, no lies, but the gear inside had blew up, into 5 majors pieces.
the crankshaft was an r33 gtr crank, but the ends of the oil drive where getting round, witch is probably the most dangerous problem for any oil pump gear, if you want it to be reliable, make sure your crank oil drive arent rounded off in the ends
so with that done, i restarted my second rebuild. i got my crank machined and collared, and searched forums for another pump as i wanted to test another pump then the jun, to compare. i got my hands on a nitto pump after reading alot of skyline australia posts, apparently nitto gears are so strong, that a blown engine had a piece of motor run through the gears and it didnt even snap it, it only sent the piece flying through the housing, and its exposed at nitto., they also build super high power rbs, with their own pumps and rely on them.

i mesured the clearence of my collar and oil pump drive and was at 0.013 thousands, and thats what the pump needs, and honesly on my personal experienced, i cant ask for better, on startup in the morning the pressure is high, idle pressure is almost a quarter of the meter, full boost goes around halfway, i have dragged the car the whole summer, and road raced it for about 20-25 20 minute runs , and never an issue or oil problem happened, my catch can does not fill up, neither gets residues in hoses.

later on during the year, i had to pull appart my first engine i rebuilt with a JUN oil pump, and got to my rod bearings, and they had some markings on them, as if the idle oil pressure got so low that the parts touched each other, so imo i wouldnt recommend it only for that reason.

i pulled appart the engine with the nitto oil pump in december 2013 and the bearings were still in perfect condition, on rods and bearings. so i would recommend to you the nitto, with their collar or same clearence collar.

So in the end on my own and personal experience, I think aftermarket oil pumps can all be good if your crankshaft is in a "like new" condition on the oil pump drive (no round edges), and has the clearence the company claims is needed for you to run it.

the only thing i find sad about oil pumps on rbs is alot of people over panic, yes its not impossible that pumps fail, especially if you drift it, rbs are not the only engines with problems, and they tell you you have to put a drain at the end of your head, oil restrictors, a dry sump setup, an extended oil pan, its like putting 5k only to solve a problem that a 1.5k oil pump can fix if installed with proper parts.

its my own and personal experience.

[caliber676]

I think your good with any aftermarket pump. I chose tomei because you can adjust the pressure from the housing without removing the pump from the engine.

[Skym]

Oil pumps are application specific.

Pressure of pump, volume of pump depends on many things, like engine internals (forged or factory which affect's the piston clearances, etc), rpm, boost level, etc. That will vary from engine to engine based on hp the engine produces, internals, etc.

N1, factory oil pump work ok if rev limiter is kept at factory and boost level is kept lowish with factory internals (also stay away from the rev limiter, as done with street driving). Outside stock rev limit's, fitting aftermarket internals, higher boost levels you look at higher volume, pressure oil pumps. They should be rated to a certain rpm that the volume, pressure matches and sometimes takes into account engine internals, etc.

Accusump tank can help with pressure drops when cornering (high g on semi or slicks), as it can be set to release at a set oil pressure.

I think a external single stage oil pump from ROSS (or from US) with 7-9 litre wet sump would be good, as can be upgraded, easily rebuilt / maintained, as is external to the engine.

Dry sump would be best at a certain hp, rpm, boost level, etc. But if keep revs lower and can find a way to drop sump pressure / reduce blow by (what dry sump setup helps to eliminate by sucking blowby out of the engine via the multi stage pump) with higher boost levels, wet sump should be ok.

Also cost is another factor with the external pumps costing a bit more, but are rebuildable / reuseable.

[bobbo]

Here is what I received back in an email:
Hi There

Thank you for your PM. There has been extensive testing done with high powered Drag Skylines in the far east and these have been manufactured to provide a more solid base similar to the 2JZ engines as used in the Supras which seldom have any pump drive issues.

Just some general information:

We have these available in N1 77mm, OE 81mm Jun and Tomei pump fitments.

Price will be around £430 GBP.

If there is a bunch of you guys interested in Canada, we can ship all together and save you on postage costs.

Fitting details as follows:

The process of fitting it as follows:

The crank needs to be in an environment with an ambient temp of 20 deg C for at least two hours.

The old drive is machined off in a lathe, with the crank diameter being 0.08 mm bigger than the collar. The press fit would prevent it from moving.

The collar then needs to be heated up to 400 deg C and press fitted on.

Visit our facebook page for more pictures:

facebook.com/supertecracing

Regards

[cobrAA]

thats my point... anyone can say they have been tested on high power drag skylines.. but where are they ?? no where to be found lol..

[bobbo]

I will try emailing him back and see if there are any testimonials.

[Dragon Humper]

Splined is the ONLY way to go. There are so few pump failures in the Chevy LSX world that you would be hard pressed to even find a story on it (they are obviously splined). High flow is only for builds that need it, if you are running a BB turbo with a restrictor for the head then you only need stock oil flow with a bit more pressure.

If it is a kickass twin T78 build with large oil clearences to keep the brgs cool then you need more flow to feed all that leakyness in the system.



Jon.

[r32_nate]

I dunno... I understand that no one can seem to find these mysterious high power skylines, but there are so many platforms that run spline drive without these issues, it seems like the only logical choice.

One would only assume that Spool RB and Supertec would have run these gears on some of their skylines before putting on the market, I seriously doubt some R&D guy drew it on a piece of loose leaf with a pencil, cut it out of billet and put it up for sale cuz it looks like it might work lol.

Ill be going spline when its time to order. Spool RB is cheaper, and seems to make some damn good RB26 products... They are my choice so far. Just finished stripping my RB26 tonight, so it will be after xmas before i get ordering things at the point. But i will update for sure as I go.

[Skym]

But have to take into account that Chevy V8 engines are reved lower than straight 6 RB engines.

I think reving to 6000rpm and using boost level to make up for air lost by reving the engine lower is the way to go for longevity.