Project V8 RX-7: More Oiling Insurance from Improved Racing, Accusump and Earl’s (Part 2 of 2)
In Part 1 of our improvements to the Project V8 RX-7’s oiling system last week we got an oil cooler, Ano-Tuff fittings and Pro-Lite 350 hose from Earl’s and an oil thermostat from Improved Racing. In Part 2 we’ll finish it off by walking you through how we put it all together.
Assembling the Oil Lines
With the oil cooler, thermostat and Accusump mounted we’re ready to start cutting hose! We start with the longest line—from the Accusump behind the rear differential all the way to front of the car near the oil cooler. If you recall the diagram we sketched of our system a couple pages ago we originally planned to put a T-fitting on the inlet side of our thermostat to make the Accusump oil supply line as short and direct to the engine as possible. Unfortunately the fitting configuration to make that happen was too tall and would have interfered with the exhaust manifold. Plan B is to put the T-fitting up front by the oil cooler. We will also be installing a check valve on one leg of the “T”. In the event the Accusump is called to duty we want all the oil discharged to go towards the engine and bearings rather than backwards through the oil cooler and towards the oil pump.
Earl’s Pro-Lite 350 hose is very compliant so installing the Ano-Tuff fittings are really easy. Without having to cut anything yet we installed our first 90-degree swivel fitting on the hose to connect to the Accusump.
The coupler on the end of the Accusump is a female 1/2-inch NPT so we used a 90-degree 1/2″ NPT male to -10 AN hose fitting. We picked the 90-degree bend to kick the hose up over the top of the differential so we could run the hose up along the top of the transmission tunnel–well clear of the ground or anything that may get kicked up by our sticky tires.
The first step to assemble the hose end is to jam the hose into the back side of the socket part of the fitting leaving a small gap between the end of the threads and the end of the rubber coming through.
We lightly clamped the socket down in a vice, lubricated the hose end’s male-threaded side and screwed it into the socket. The process cuts the face of the rubber hose creating an exceptionally strong interference fit. This was actually the only instance we ever used the vice. Working with the Pro-Lite 350 hose was so easy we did the remaining fittings with two wrenches.
The assembled hose end. Notice the male end of the fitting isn’t screwed down all the way down to the socket. Over-tightening can distort the seal and cause a leak.
