# Another stock oil pump failure



## UnderDriven (Jul 9, 2015)

Well my time has come, the stock oil pump has failed on start-up leaving a car show, fairly certain I heard it snap too as car shut off immediately after starting, its NEVER done that, then upon a restart is when I noticed the loss of pressure verified by 2 gauges, it was shut off after about 7 seconds, no rattling, hoping the crank is ok. Now comes the task of figuring out what parts I want, mainly oil pump/gears, the spline drive is out due to overall cost of them plus having them installed but spool import billet gears may be the direction I go as I cannot find anyone having a failure with them. Will post pics of damage once engine is out next month. Just so everyone knows I had my limiter at 8200, shifting at 8k so was on borrowed time doing that, I just recently upped it from 7500 which has been fine for the last 3 years. Had I kept it at 7500 I'm confident this would not have happened. I do have a Fluidampr which I believed prolonged the life of the gears.


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## ShopGTR (Oct 4, 2007)

Sorry.


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## 120506 (Jun 23, 2015)

How old was the pump?


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## Cris (Sep 17, 2007)

UnderDriven said:


> Well my time has come, the stock oil pump has failed on start-up leaving a car show, fairly certain I heard it snap too as car shut off immediately after starting, its NEVER done that, then upon a restart is when I noticed the loss of pressure verified by 2 gauges, it was shut off after about 7 seconds, no rattling, hoping the crank is ok. Now comes the task of figuring out what parts I want, mainly oil pump/gears, the spline drive is out due to overall cost of them plus having them installed but spool import billet gears may be the direction I go as I cannot find anyone having a failure with them. Will post pics of damage once engine is out next month. Just so everyone knows I had my limiter at 8200, shifting at 8k so was on borrowed time doing that, I just recently upped it from 7500 which has been fine for the last 3 years. Had I kept it at 7500 I'm confident this would not have happened. I do have a Fluidampr which I believed prolonged the life of the gears.


You are probably aware but I tend to think of the oil pump as a wear item. If that's the original pump then that's probably not a bad innings. Escpecially as you don't know how the engine has been treated in the past.


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## matty32 (Dec 18, 2005)

going to that rev limit, as you say, was only a matter of time

interesting post regarding oil pumps from motive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu1fcdqeovE


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## Bennyboy1984 (Jul 26, 2009)

Never felt comfortable shifting at 8k rpms, power starts to dip a bit for me by then so never felt the need to. What power is your 32 making?


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

UnderDriven said:


> Well my time has come, the stock oil pump has failed on start-up leaving a car show, fairly certain I heard it snap too as car shut off immediately after starting, its NEVER done that, then upon a restart is when I noticed the loss of pressure verified by 2 gauges, it was shut off after about 7 seconds, no rattling, hoping the crank is ok. Now comes the task of figuring out what parts I want, mainly oil pump/gears, the spline drive is out due to overall cost of them plus having them installed but spool import billet gears may be the direction I go as I cannot find anyone having a failure with them. Will post pics of damage once engine is out next month. Just so everyone knows I had my limiter at 8200, shifting at 8k so was on borrowed time doing that, I just recently upped it from 7500 which has been fine for the last 3 years. Had I kept it at 7500 I'm confident this would not have happened. I do have a Fluidampr which I believed prolonged the life of the gears.



Billet gears are nothing more than a band aid. We have seen all the uprated billet pumps fail including Nitto as well. The problem is in the flat drive. Nissan Skyline GT-R s in the USA Blog: RB26dett Oil Pump Gears Going Oval : Oil Pump Failures


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## UnderDriven (Jul 9, 2015)

FRRACER said:


> Billet gears are nothing more than a band aid. We have seen all the uprated billet pumps fail including Nitto as well. The problem is in the flat drive. Nissan Skyline GT-R s in the USA Blog: RB26dett Oil Pump Gears Going Oval : Oil Pump Failures


Frracer, you sell spline drive kits so I understand why you constantly put down billet gears and the flat drive system but I ask you this, show me a couple billet gear failures and ill more than likely change my mind, I could not read about any failures of BILLET gears online (spool or reimax). What I have found is multiple people running them for years shifting them at high rpm and using launch control, etc without issues. Obviously putting billet gears on a short nose crank is a bad idea.



[redacted] said:


> How old was the pump?


Orig pump, 59k actual miles



Bennyboy1984 said:


> Never felt comfortable shifting at 8k rpms, power starts to dip a bit for me by then so never felt the need to. What power is your 32 making?


550 BHP roughly


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## Bennyboy1984 (Jul 26, 2009)

UnderDriven said:


> Frracer, you sell spline drive kits so I understand why you constantly put down billet gears and the flat drive system but I ask you this, show me a couple billet gear failures and ill more than likely change my mind, I could not read about any failures of BILLET gears online (spool or reimax). What I have found is multiple people running them for years shifting them at high rpm and using launch control, etc without issues. Obviously putting billet gears on a short nose crank is a bad idea.


People tend to get red in the face when the 'impossible' happens, it's all about 'keeping up appearances' with some folk 




550 BHP roughly[/QUOTE]

Previous owner of my car was running similar power and blew his oil pump on the motorway racing a Porsche (and probably winning :chuckle and had it replaced with another stock pump! As soon as I came into ownership I had that thing ripped out! They're known as the RB's 'achilles heel' for a reason...


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## 120506 (Jun 23, 2015)

Must have been abused. Shocking them isnt a great idea. I have a new n1 and it hasnt disintegrated yet.


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

UnderDriven said:


> Frracer, you sell spline drive kits so I understand why you constantly put down billet gears and the flat drive system but I ask you this, show me a couple billet gear failures and ill more than likely change my mind, I could not read about any failures of BILLET gears online (spool or reimax). What I have found is multiple people running them for years shifting them at high rpm and using launch control, etc without issues. Obviously putting billet gears on a short nose crank is a bad idea.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If someone does not believe cannot force them totally their choice . But for the sake of other members here I will show some pictures below. Most were pictures either sent to us by customers or measured themselves and sent to us. 

Out of Round - or oval Tomei inner ring (Sean Morris)


















Broken Nitto pump - Facebook member.









Excessive clearance on brand new Reimax billet N1 gear and new long nose crank. This was measure by me. 









Oval Jun gears. Pump sent to me by Sean Morris









Independent article from 2009/2010. Nothing to do with us so we cannot be accused of bias.

Nissan Skyline GTR Oil Pump Failure Problems

On a final note wide or narrow flat engagement makes little difference both can creat the same results.


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## UnderDriven (Jul 9, 2015)

[redacted] said:


> Must have been abused. Shocking them isnt a great idea. I have a new n1 and it hasnt disintegrated yet.


Never been on limiter or done any launches in my ownership, just revving to 8k rpms. Glad it happened at idle but still have a new crank on order.


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## UnderDriven (Jul 9, 2015)

FRRACER said:


> If someone does not believe cannot force them totally their choice . But for the sake of other members here I will show some pictures below. Most were pictures either sent to us by customers or measured themselves and sent to us.


Again, this is NOT a FAILURE of remaix or Spool billet gears. I am not comparing reimax or spool to Tomei or Nitto pumps both of which cost 3x+ more than billet gears. I'm looking for actual failures of them and cannot find any.


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## 120506 (Jun 23, 2015)

UnderDriven said:


> in my ownership


:chuckle:


__________
Yeah lucky.


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## matty32 (Dec 18, 2005)

You don***8217;t know how it***8217;s been driven 

However going past the 8k mark your looking for trouble


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## Cris (Sep 17, 2007)

UnderDriven said:


> Never been on limiter or done any launches in my ownership, just revving to 8k rpms. Glad it happened at idle but still have a new crank on order.


My oem pump wore on a sub 40k mile car. Of course how many of those miles were hard....

I know some people who don't believe in warming up engines and happily bounce them off the rev limiter from cold. Same purple tend to sell their cars before 30k miles (1-2 years) so as far as they are concerned this isn't a problem.

If one of these types has owned the car in the xxx years before you get to it...


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## Dan ep3 turbo (Sep 29, 2013)

What people also need to take into consideration is how many flat drive pumps have been sold and the use and abuse they have taken. I bet there 50 times the amount of spline drive kits, let***8217;s see the feedback in years to come when the spline kits start failing. 

There are other reason why a oil pump gear will be damaged other than its a poor design.


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## Dan ep3 turbo (Sep 29, 2013)

Frracer 

What power were the tomei and nitto pumps running, what use how much abuse on 2 step launching?


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

Ask Sean Morris they were from his cars.


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## Dan ep3 turbo (Sep 29, 2013)

FRRACER said:


> Ask Sean Morris they were from his cars.




It’s like saying my os giken triple clutch only lasted 2 months! but had been launched 10 times a day with 1000hp.

How many pumps have tomei sold thousands how many gears have you sold? How many known tomei failures has there been?


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## wardiz (Dec 23, 2008)

What about other engines with a different design in oil pump ? 
I think there are things to learn from others engines. Does the 2jz gte face the same issues ? What about Honda engines and their high rpm ?


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## 120506 (Jun 23, 2015)

wardiz said:


> What about other engines with a different design in oil pump ?
> I think there are things to learn from others engines. Does the 2jz gte face the same issues ? What about Honda engines and their high rpm ?


Hondas just dont break full stop. The 2jz gte is a superior engine to the rb26 for various reasons.


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## Bennyboy1984 (Jul 26, 2009)

[redacted] said:


> Hondas just dont break full stop. The 2jz gte is a superior engine to the rb26 for various reasons.


Then again Hondas weren't making engines with big amounts of power/torque.

Would like to see how the new turbo Honda engines cope with tuning etc...


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## Dan ep3 turbo (Sep 29, 2013)

Bennyboy1984 said:


> Then again Hondas weren't making engines with big amounts of power/torque.
> 
> Would like to see how the new turbo Honda engines cope with tuning etc...



What has torque got to do with a oil pump? A oil pump doesn’t have a lot of resistance. 

The Honda k20 is on a flat drive oil pump drive and they have no problems, most turbocharged ones are well over 500hp and bounce of the limited constantly


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## 120506 (Jun 23, 2015)

Bennyboy1984 said:


> Then again Hondas weren't making engines with big amounts of power/torque.
> 
> Would like to see how the new turbo Honda engines cope with tuning etc...


Torque is overrated, f1 engines are a prime example.

Honda engines can rev to 8500-9000 all day and can be tuned with a 10k rev limit without much issue. B20 Builds can be hammered and just take it. 

The F20 can take 500 easy on standard internals with the 9k+ rev limit and hardly break a sweat.


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## Bennyboy1984 (Jul 26, 2009)

Dan ep3 turbo said:


> What has torque got to do with a oil pump? A oil pump doesn’t have a lot of resistance.
> 
> The Honda k20 is on a flat drive oil pump drive and they have no problems, most turbocharged ones are well over 500hp and bounce of the limited constantly


Didn't say it had anything 

I was referring to the comment 'Hondas just don't break full stop'. They can rev to 8500 time and time again because there isn't much power being made or much weight being lugged around. Don't think there are many engines that can last like the old Type R Honda engines that make big power/torque.


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## Bennyboy1984 (Jul 26, 2009)

[redacted] said:


> Torque is overrated, f1 engines are a prime example.
> 
> Honda engines can rev to 8500-9000 all day and can be tuned with a 10k rev limit without much issue. B20 Builds can be hammered and just take it.
> 
> The F20 can take 500 easy on standard internals with the 9k+ rev limit and hardly break a sweat.


Then again F1 engines are only carrying around a few kilos, put it in a heavy car and things will wear quicker no doubt...but again not referring to oil pumps etc...


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## wardiz (Dec 23, 2008)

I tend to think that crank shaft drive the oil pump so there must be a way of comparison between various engine and how the oil gear is driven (spline, flat, etc, etc). For sure, a bigger force (torque) from the crank will put more stress on the oil gear. Do Honda engines have similar torque as RB ? I would have thought the 2jz gte would be a good comparison from an oil pump only.


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## 120506 (Jun 23, 2015)

Bennyboy1984 said:


> Then again F1 engines are only carrying around a few kilos, put it in a heavy car and things will wear quicker no doubt...but again not referring to oil pumps etc...


You mentioned torque.


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## Dan ep3 turbo (Sep 29, 2013)

Bennyboy1984 said:


> Didn't say it had anything
> 
> I was referring to the comment 'Hondas just don't break full stop'. They can rev to 8500 time and time again because there isn't much power being made or much weight being lugged around. Don't think there are many engines that can last like the old Type R Honda engines that make big power/torque.



Hondas are brilliant I had a 500hp turbo k20 ep3 before my skyline it was running 400 on stock engine for 30k miles I dropped in some forged rods and pistons and had up mapped to 500hp done 12k miles like that and was still running perfect 2 years later and it used to bounce of the limiter all the time. 

The reason rb26 stock pumps and n1s break is there crap, Have you ever heard of a tomei pump breaking? Doesn’t Jeff ludgate r33 drag car run a tomei and that’s running mid 8s.


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## Bennyboy1984 (Jul 26, 2009)

Dan ep3 turbo said:


> Hondas are brilliant I had a 500hp turbo k20 ep3 before my skyline it was running 400 on stock engine for 30k miles I dropped in some forged rods and pistons and had up mapped to 500hp done 12k miles like that and was still running perfect 2 years later and it used to bounce of the limiter all the time.
> 
> The reason rb26 stock pumps and n1s break is there crap, Have you ever heard of a tomei pump breaking? Doesn’t Jeff ludgate r33 drag car run a tomei and that’s running mid 8s.


You must be one of the lucky ones, I had my old B18C5 rebuilt with Skunk2 cams etc, left it n/a but it failed. Was only making about 220bhp. Could well have been down to the tuner, they did have a bit of a bad rep. 
No I haven’t heard of many Tomeis failing and I know how tough they are but they do appear not to be bullet proof. But again as you say there aren’t many examples about.


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## Bennyboy1984 (Jul 26, 2009)

[redacted] said:


> You mentioned torque.


You stated that it’s overrated and mentioned F1 cars. I was trying to make a point that in a heavy street car you need torque. Hondas are great and very reliable but they do lack torque. I had a bad experience in the Honda ‘tuning scene’ so it left a bitter taste in my mouth :chuckle:


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## Dazsw (May 26, 2017)

Doesn't matter what an engine is in, car/bike/truck anything else.....if you raise the rev limit and hit it often, stuff will break.

Your taking them past their design tolerances.


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

...


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

wardiz said:


> What about other engines with a different design in oil pump ?
> I think there are things to learn from others engines. Does the 2jz gte face the same issues ? What about Honda engines and their high rpm ?


2JZ does not really suffer from pump gear breakages as RB does. Look at what is at the end of the crank. Nissan just got it wrong.










https://magengines.com/product/crankshaft-with-bearings-toyota-2jz-ge-3-0-ltr/


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

Bennyboy1984 said:


> You stated that it’s overrated and mentioned F1 cars. I was trying to make a point that in a heavy street car you need torque. Hondas are great and very reliable but they do lack torque. I had a bad experience in the Honda ‘tuning scene’ so it left a bitter taste in my mouth :chuckle:


Those engines are 4 cylinder so less crank flex where as the longer 6 cylinder crank does suffer more.


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## Dan ep3 turbo (Sep 29, 2013)

FRRACER said:


> Those engines are 4 cylinder so less crank flex where as the longer 6 cylinder crank does suffer more.



So if the issue is crank flex as you say then it will do it to the spline drive kit


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## joshuaho96 (Jul 14, 2016)

Spline drive has less free play to begin with, flat drives have to have a certain level of clearance or they will bind up. These clearances are the problem when you bang on the rev limiter, the engine goes into decel and the oil pump gear unloads before getting shock loaded as the ECU lets off the rev limiter. If you look at the VQ engines Nissan ended up adding a second flat to the gear to try and strengthen it and that's for a crank that's half the length.

Spline drives also greatly increase the contact area. The same force over a larger area means less pressure.

I don't think Supertec is really doing anything incredible here, they basically took a 2JZ oil pump gear design and adapted it to the RB26.


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## K66 SKY (Jan 25, 2005)

joshuaho96 said:


> *Spline drives also greatly increase the contact area. The same force over a larger area means less pressure.
> *


Which in the grand scheme of things is a good thing, _Yes?_



joshuaho96 said:


> *I don't think Supertec is really doing anything incredible here, they basically took a 2JZ oil pump gear design and adapted it to the RB26.*


But by making these 2JZ type Spline Drive gear sets available to us all to purchase so we can fit them to an RB26 Crank and the RB related brand oil pump of Our choosing, _Is this not also a good thing too??_

Supertec's contributions here alone is certainly way more beneficial than anything I've ever done for the Worldwide Skyline Community joshuaho96....

JM2PW!


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## joshuaho96 (Jul 14, 2016)

K66 SKY said:


> Which in the grand scheme of things is a good thing, _Yes?_


Yeah, I'm just saying that this particular design is not snake oil.


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## K66 SKY (Jan 25, 2005)

joshuaho96 said:


> *Yeah, I'm just saying that this particular design is not snake oil.*


That maybe so but lest at least give some credit where its due. Not everyone who Owns an RB engine is an Engineer who can fab up their Own bespoke parts in their private Tool room as and when required joshuaho96. 

So when somebody _(It doesn't matter who)_ takes the time and effort to produce an on the shelf part for everybody to purchase or consume _(if they deem they need to)_, This _(IMHO)_ can only be a good thing for the whole Community. 

Its all to easy to publically criticise Folk and vent lyrical in this modern internet age but any form of praise on the other hand seems to be severely lacking on _ye-olde-interwebs....._


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## joshuaho96 (Jul 14, 2016)

Again, I'm not aiming to criticize Supertec, they seem to do solid work. I can't personally testify one way or another so I don't think it's my place to praise/criticize them. If they do good work, more power to them. My comments were with regard to claims that billet flat gears is equivalent to a spline drive gears due to crank whip affecting both of them.


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

joshuaho96 said:


> Yeah, I'm just saying that this particular design is not snake oil.


It is not snake oil. It works and is tried and tested we provide an alternative if people want to buy they can if people want to argue they can. We have our customers who are happy and we also have repeat customers in the tuning scene. We cover a bigger range of pumps than the other company who makes them.


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## joshuaho96 (Jul 14, 2016)

FRRACER said:


> It is not snake oil. It works and is tried and tested we provide an alternative if people want to buy they can if people want to argue they can. We have our customers who are happy and we also have repeat customers in the tuning scene. We cover a bigger range of pumps than the other company who makes them.


We're agreeing here. I'm not the one that claimed billet flat == spline drive gears.


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## UnderDriven (Jul 9, 2015)

Im sure you have many happy customers and have a great product but IMO its overkill for a ~600bhp street motor, there has not been any reported failures of billet gears and there are 100x as many ppl running them vs spline drive (mainly cause they have been out for many years). If I were revving the car to 10k, had a 2-step and planned on doing tons of launches I would opt for the spline drive. Since I don't plan on any of that so ill take the $700 saved and put it towards pistons.


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## KamikazePlayboy (Jun 27, 2018)

that sucks man , hope you can sort it


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

joshuaho96 said:


> Spline drive has less free play to begin with, flat drives have to have a certain level of clearance or they will bind up. These clearances are the problem when you bang on the rev limiter, the engine goes into decel and the oil pump gear unloads before getting shock loaded as the ECU lets off the rev limiter. If you look at the VQ engines Nissan ended up adding a second flat to the gear to try and strengthen it and that's for a crank that's half the length.
> 
> Spline drives also greatly increase the contact area. The same force over a larger area means less pressure.
> 
> I don't think Supertec is really doing anything incredible here, they basically took a 2JZ oil pump gear design and adapted it to the RB26.


And it works!


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## FRRACER (Jun 23, 2013)

UnderDriven said:


> Im sure you have many happy customers and have a great product but IMO its overkill for a ~600bhp street motor, there has not been any reported failures of billet gears and there are 100x as many ppl running them vs spline drive (mainly cause they have been out for many years). If I were revving the car to 10k, had a 2-step and planned on doing tons of launches I would opt for the spline drive. Since I don't plan on any of that so ill take the $700 saved and put it towards pistons.


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## Johnny R33 (Sep 11, 2020)

I myself have gone to a spline driven oil pump assembly. My RB is stroked, and making high WHP, I find piece of mind knowing that when I do shift at 8500+ rpm I'm not staving the engine from proper oil circulation. I don't always shit that high but when racing on the road courses, I know all is running smoothly, and I'm not worrying about oiling . This is just my 2cents worth, I know we all have different opinions, some like spline driven oil pumps, some don't need them for their application, it's all good in the hood!!


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