82-83 GS1100 Top End Oiler Install

[isleoman]

Has any one here got a WARDS Vortex adapter on their bike? The WARDS Vortex adapter uses a pickup tube just like mine, but I don't know if it's cross drilled, like mine is.

As far as the possibility of oil starvation concerns go, the 3mm holes in my pickup tube are roughly 3 times the ID of most top end oiler hoses, so I doubt if that's really a concern.

The new top end oiler/oil cooler adapter will work fine on all GS Suzuki's from the GS750 to the 1150. Cheers, Terry.

Terry/Posplayr,

I would just like to say thanks to both of you for looking into this issue in such depth. I think you both have brought some great ideas for discussion. I work at an R&D lab and we don't have this much peer review going on so hopefully we'll get some answers and the knowege base and product options will move forward.

Posplayr did your kit come with a pick up collar? I think either Ward's bought Vortex or the other way around and it could be that they don't include it any more. My kit was in new packaging but I got it off Ebay and can't say how old it might be. I also didn't get any instructions.

The collar is a perfect fit for the recess on the under side of the Vortex cover. The collar is .73 inches high when you just measure the metal but if you include the O ring on top, its .76 inches high. I don't know if the o ring was meant to be up towards the plate or down down towards the pick up tube.

The i.d. is .49 and the o.d. is .92 inches. When the collar is inserted into the recess in the Votex cover with the oil ring touching the plate, it projects .60 inches below the cover plate. So the recess in the cover is about .32 inches deep. There is no cross drilling in this collar.

The casting on the OEM cover doesn't seem (visually) to extend this far down (I haven't measured it) so you would suspect Suzuki wants the oil to flow evenly under the cover.

It seems like Ward's wanted to direct the majority if not all of the flow up through the Top End oiler.

The elimination of the temp sensor and pressure switch on the Wards cover seems to indicate its primary customer was going to be a drag racer as opposed to a street rider.
I wonder if any of the engine builders know the history. I'm also wondering if the collar was only meant to adapt the top end oiler for one specific application (high pressure 750 maybe?).

In the end the major question is how do we determine if the hydrant is safe and effective? Posplayr you mentioned VDO gauge checks before and after. What would the baseline be, the Vortex cover with or without the collar, feeding the Vortex Tee and checked at the end of the top end oiler hose?

This would then be checked against Terry's hydrant, your modified hydrant & extended pressure switch shaft, and possibly the unit your running now attached to the temp sensor port.

Or are you saying to just watch the VDO gauge attached to the oil gallery plug on the side of the engine under both senarios? From what you've said about your current set up your happy with the engine pressure at various rpms but it doesn't seem like we know how much oil is going up the cooler hoses with that set up.

[terry]

G'DayTom, thanks for that mate, say, how about one of you guys in America give Wards a call and ask them about the pickup tube? I think it'd be great if instead of arguing about what we THINK is correct, we go to the "horses mouth" and ask the guys at Wards?

In the interim, I'm gonna run my cooler/top end oiler adapter on my GS1000S for the next few months to do some home-grown "R&D", I'm really excited about the prospect of running a top end oiler on it as well as a cooler, the engine's done around 50,000 pretty hard miles, and I'm sure I can hear the cams shuffling around in dry bearings, so a good spray of oil certainly won't hurt it, ha ha! Cheers, Terry.

[posplayr]

Isleoman

[quote=isleoman;868352]Terry/Posplayr,

I would just like to say thanks to both of you for looking into this issue in such depth. I think you both have brought some great ideas for discussion.

I work at an R&D lab and we don't have this much peer review going on so hopefully we'll get some answers and the knowege base and product options will move forward.

I guess you guys are not CMMI Level 3 yet

Posplayr did your kit come with a pick up collar? I think either Ward's bought Vortex or the other way around and it could be that they don't include it any more. My kit was in new packaging but I got it off Ebay and can't say how old it might be. I also didn't get any instructions.

Mine had no collar or neck. This is what I bought. i have seen others advertised that included provision for the oil sensor switch

http://secure.mycart.net/catalogs/catalog.asp?prodid=326398&showprevnext=1

The collar is a perfect fit for the recess on the under side of the Vortex cover. The collar is .73 inches high when you just measure the metal but if you include the O ring on top, its .76 inches high. I don't know if the o ring was meant to be up towards the plate or down down towards the pick up tube.

The i.d. is .49 and the o.d. is .92 inches. When the collar is inserted into the recess in the Votex cover with the oil ring touching the plate, it projects .60 inches below the cover plate. So the recess in the cover is about .32 inches deep. There is no cross drilling in this collar.

The casting on the OEM cover doesn't seem (visually) to extend this far down (I haven't measured it) so you would suspect Suzuki wants the oil to flow evenly under the cover.

It seems like Ward's wanted to direct the majority if not all of the flow up through the Top End oiler.

The elimination of the temp sensor and pressure switch on the Wards cover seems to indicate its primary customer was going to be a drag racer as opposed to a street rider.

In speaking with Chef , he said the racers have so much power and flow from the pump they blow out their oil seals in the cylinder. The actually plug them. In this case you could reduce the pressure by causing a back flow as i showed in my analysis where all of the flow from the Central port is captured. i think Robersto said something similar about plugging main cylinder oil galleries.

In the end the major question is how do we determine if the hydrant is safe and effective? Posplayr you mentioned VDO gauge checks before and after. What would the baseline be, the Vortex cover with or without the collar, feeding the Vortex Tee and checked at the end of the top end oiler hose?

There are many combinations but the first one of concern for me would be the Hydrant top end oiler configuration.

The baseline would establish oil pressures as measured at the side gallery with a VDO gauge as well as at the cam gallery at the top of the cylinder (two VDO gauges required or just swap and measure averages). These static pressure gauges will not alter any flow from stock. If we want to be really anal we can check the left cam galley as well.

The next test would insure that the gallery pressure (lower end of the cylinder ) was not compromised (i.e. much lower pressures) and that there is an increased in pressure associated with increased flow at the cams.

In addition it would be comforting if the pressure switch still operated which one of the main purposes of the hydrant.

You could do the same test with all three.

This would then be checked against Terry's hydrant, your modified hydrant & extended pressure switch shaft, and possibly the unit your running now attached to the temp sensor port.

Or are you saying to just watch the VDO gauge attached to the oil gallery plug on the side of the engine under both scenarios? From what you've said about your current set up your happy with the engine pressure at various rpms but it doesn't seem like we know how much oil is going up the cooler hoses with that set up

From my setup:

* Ad-hock T of T for oiler and temp sensor
* high performance gears
* oil cooler
* top end oiler

and having seen my current pressure measurements I know the following:

a.) The pressure in the gallery (3 psi at idle, 6 psi at 5K rpm and 9 psi at 8-9K rpm) is sufficient to insure that there is more than enough oil pressure for the crankshaft and transmission while providing flow to the top end oiler.

b.) The parallel path between cylinder to cams and oiler to cams essentially guarantees more oil flow to cams than stock.


Posplayr

[posplayr]

Terry

I was planning on calling them Ward tommorow.

Remember this oiler is not approved for street use so i might not be able to
A.) speak with the right person or
B.) get a straight answer.

I'll try.

Posplayr

[terry]

Thanks mate, I appreciate your efforts! Cheers, Terry.

[isleoman]

I was planning on calling them Ward tommorow.

Remember this oiler is not approved for street use so i might not be able to
A.) speak with the right person or
B.) get a straight answer.

I'll try.

Posplayr

Did a search and found this.

https://www.dragbike.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6344

I wasn't able to open this at work but could see some of the cached emails by clicking on "Cached" . Most of these racers seem to be saying leave aluminum sleeve out or risk crank damage. Also a lot of recommendations to "dry block". Not sure I want to bother with that procedure till I need to open head up again.

The thread also says instructions are available here.

http://www.wardperformance.com/topendoilkit%20instructions.htm

I can't open instructions at work either

[isleoman]

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=108930&highlight=oiler

Saw that rosco15 had provided input on the Dragbike.com reference above. Did a search on GSR and found thread above. We seem to be re-inventing the same wheel.

[posplayr]

Spoke with someone knowledgeable at Ward today

It was a short discussion.

Question I posed:

What is the recommendation for configuring the sensor cover for the Ward top end oiler on a street application?

http://www.wardperformance.com/topendoilingkit.htm

Answer:

"We no longer provide the Neck".

"There can be problems with the Neck".

"The Neck is used to reverse the oil flow in the engine as the engine it is being fed solely from the top end oiler to the cams and then to the rest of the motor".

"For street applications leave the neck OUT".

End of phone call.

Hope that answers the questions. This confirms what I have been saying. I will summarize what I think I know about oiler function for street v.s. race applications.


The neck is primarily for drag racing ONLY. From what I have heard (no expert on racing ), there is so much pressure build up in the engine, that the top end oiler is used to:

1.) Capture all flow with a neck
2.) Limit the flow of oil due to the reduced line size
3.) reverse oil flow in the engine
4.) generally reduce oil pressure in the engine to avoid blowing out cylinder gaskets.

For a street application the oiler function is as follows:

1.) Tap into the sensor cover so that the oiler can be supplied with a small portion of the oil flow available to the galleries. The amount of flow to the oiler should not significantly reduce the pressure in the galleries.
2.) The dual oil path for the cams a.) through the cylinder and b.) through the oiler insures the cams always see more flow that without the oiler.
3.) GS750 gears can increase oil flow and thereby insure that the oiler can be feed by the primary oil flow and the galleries still stay at above OEM pressures.

Posplayr

[terry]

Thanks for that guys, very interesting! Cheers, Terry.

[rosco15]

I see this is an old thread, but just as an update. I had suffered alot of bearing wear with that sleeve and o-ring installed under the plate for the topend oiler. Now that I run without the sleeve and o-ring everything looks great when I take the motor apart. So I would strongly suggest to never run with that sleeve in place.

[posplayr]

Data from the feild thanx Rosco

So I would strongly suggest to never run with that sleeve in place.

This the same conclusion I got from asking Ward the direct question about the neck. They called it a "neck" rather than a "sleeve"

Answer:

"We no longer provide the Neck".

"There can be problems with the Neck".

"The Neck is used to reverse the oil flow in the engine as the engine it is being fed solely from the top end oiler to the cams and then to the rest of the motor".

"For street applications leave the neck OUT".

End of phone call.

As described in the two posts above, caturing all of the flow with the neck and routing it to the valves reverses the oil flow through the engine and can starve the engine unless yu really have alot of pressure build up.

For STREET it is NOT REQUIRED AND A BAD IDEA to use the NECK see Rrosco's comments above.

Thanks for the comments

Pos