Supersport oil catch tank fill rate??

[Guest]

Hi All,

 

I have a sigma supersport 140 that's done about 1800 miles. I was poking around under the 'bonnet' last night after a fantastic afternoon's blatting and noticed that the oil catch tank has about 3/4 of an inch of oil in it - clearly it's doing what it's meant to but I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on how quickly you might expect it to fill during mixed (but spirited ) driving? No track days yet 😔 and it's only in the last 800 miles or so that I've been using anything like the full rev range.

 

Many thanks

 

Tom

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

About 19mm per 800 miles

 

Sorry !

[pugwash]

Mine does the same. You will probably find it's not oil but an oil water mix. I did learn not to have the breather pipes all the way to the bottom of the catch tank as it then blows a fine oily spray out the top to lubricate anything it finds close by! The more miles I have done, the less it seems to do it, but that may just be me getting used to emptying it every now and then.

 

Mark.

[Guest]

That's good to know! I'll take the nose cone off at the weekend and check the position of the breather pipes. This may be a stupid question but where would the water be coming from?

 

Cheers

 

Tom

[diggerman]

The contents are partly oil mist but mainly water or more accurately condensate that forms as the engine heats up, then cools down. In the good old days this gunk was simply expelled from the crankcase breather on to the road. On cars that did lots of short journeys condensate often took the form of a white gunge on the inside of the rocker (cam) cover.

 

The quantity b/supersport describes as being collected is normal.

 

Peter

[Martin J]

On the 125 the engine breaths back into the throttle body & if I have been a fraction heavy handed when topping up the oil it doesn't half lay some smoke.

 

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

The James Bond 007 feature

[Z3MCJez]

Having seen a number of track Supersport engines expire from oil starvation, my mantra is that if it's not breathing a little, it needs a bit more oil.

 

Don't rely on the dipstick reading alone.

 

Jez

 

Edited by - Z3MCJez on 4 Mar 2014 14:12:10

[FramerateUK]

How important are the catch tanks on the 140? Mine doesn't have one. I've noticed no problems on track (and I'm certainly not going as fast as any of the racers!). Would you recommend fitting one?

[ChrisC]

Quoting FramerateUK: 

How important are the catch tanks on the 140? Mine doesn't have one. I've noticed no problems on track (and I'm certainly not going as fast as any of the racers!). Would you recommend fitting one?

 

All cars need to vent crank case pressure, which is a combination of gasses that escape past the rings, and oil vapour. This crank case venting gets higher as the rev rise. On road cars its normally passed back into the engine for the engine to burn. This means your engine is burning its own by product which is not good for performance, hence racers vent this. They use a catch tank to prevent the oil content of this gas from escaping and contaminating tyres and the track etc (not good).

 

So to answer your question, no you don't need a catch tank, but it does aid engine performance, but increases servicing time.

 

Hope this helps

 

Edited by - ChrisC on 4 Mar 2014 09:49:23

[andy bell]

yeh i get a watery/oily mix and i just top up the oil occasionally every track day and when i go out for a blat.

 

Edited by - andy bell on 4 Mar 2014 15:36:43