So, I've recently had an idea cross my mind. Thought I'd post up on here and gather some advice/ideas before pursuing anything. So, the Battle-Wagon (twice-totalled '92 740 N/A) has an electric fuel pump, always has, no mods. However, there's a block-off plate on the block that I only assume is for a mechanical fuel pump. My thought was this; If one were to install a mech. pump and tap into the oil pan, run a line from that to the fuel pump, then to a cooler, and dump it into the top through some sort of oil sprayer in the valve cover... Would this aid in oil/engine cooling and suplimentary oil to the head at start-up, or... would it just increase the chances of the oil pump running dry and burn up the mechanical fuel pump because oil is not fuel. lol. if anyone has tried this and/or has any info I'd really appreciate some input. in theory it seems like a win-win...?

 

as my company's CTO likes to say "what problem are you trying to solve?". In theory, you could find an electric pump to scavenge oil out of the pan and run through a cooler and back into the block or pan but to what end? first of all, the oil is hot so no ordinary pump will do. Second, the car has already been engineered to have oil sprayed where it needs to go (or you wouldn't get 200K+ miles on an engine). Third, I'm not sure how you can simply pump oil up to get to the places it needs to go via an external pump. So, back to the question on what problem to solve... You can improve cooling by simply installing a larger or more efficient oil cooler or by allowing the radiator to do more work - a simple way there is to use a product like Redline's Water Wetter which increases the thermal conductance of the coolant. If you are looking to improve start up lubrication, start by using OEM Mann filters vs aftermarket (Fram/AC etc). I know for the 850s the Mann's have a check valve to keep oil in the top half a bit longer. The next option is synthetic oil and use the right viscosity for your driving conditions. If you go do a lot of cold weather starts (say parked outside in sub 0F conditions) you can install a block heater to preheat the oil and coolant.