Scavenge pump warning light for oil return on turbos

[Oxtar41]

I have an IPS twin turbo set up and its a low mount set up. It has a scavenge pump for the oil return from the turbos and what I'd like to do is wire in a safety light in the car on a pressure switch for it. Has anyone here done that? Or know of a kit that would have everything to do it?

I plan on taking the car on some long trips this summer and in the event that the pump would fail I'd like to catch it asap so I don't cause any unwanted damage. I kinda have something planned out but was just looking for thoughts / ideas.

What do you guys think is it worth it or am I just being paranoid?

[blake-b]

If the pump fails, the oil will push past the seals and into the exhaust. There will be a huge plume of smoke and you cannot miss it. It will be a better warning signal than anything else unless you wire up something to punch you in the face or a screeching tone from your speakers.

It happened to me with an AGP kit.

I replaced the pump and after any residual oil was burnt out, there was nothing to indicate anything had ever happened.

[SSE 4 2SS]

Originally Posted by blake-b

If the pump fails, the oil will push past the seals and into the exhaust. There will be a huge plume of smoke and you cannot miss it. It will be a better warning signal than anything else unless you wire up something to punch you in the face or a screeching tone from your speakers.

It happened to me with an AGP kit.

I replaced the pump and after any residual oil was burnt out, there was nothing to indicate anything had ever happened.

What^^^^ said….

[Oxtar41]

Originally Posted by blake-b

If the pump fails, the oil will push past the seals and into the exhaust. There will be a huge plume of smoke and you cannot miss it. It will be a better warning signal than anything else unless you wire up something to punch you in the face or a screeching tone from your speakers.

It happened to me with an AGP kit.

I replaced the pump and after any residual oil was burnt out, there was nothing to indicate anything had ever happened.

Good to know. There's approximately 20k miles on this pump, when did yours fail?

[dreksnot]

Originally Posted by blake-b

There will be a huge plume of smoke and you cannot miss it.

Yup. Pretty obvious, even to any casual observer. I believe if there is a scavenger pump failure, it won't be a progressive one that happens slowly over time. It will be a quick, definitive failure.

I've driven over 45,000 miles with my AGP setup and only had one failure. That was due to to a problem where my bearing in my turbo came apart (other issue I caused) and a piece lodged in my scavenger pump gear, shearing the pin. Just a $0.27 key stock piece fix with a little filing and away I went. Also, added a screen filter pre-scavenger pump.

[SSE 4 2SS]

Which pump are you running…

My build prior to a dry sump system sported a Turbowerx EXA scavenge pump…

I blew up a turbo, badly, and ended up getting a couple of bearings in the scavenge pump itself… As part of the clean-up/repair of the car for the next pass, we removed the pump housing cover plate, removed the bearings the escaped from the turbo center section. Put 12 volts worth of electrons in it and it worked good as new… This was with several minutes of run time against locked up impellers…

As has been mentioned, losing a scavenge pump most probably won’t hurt the turbos, as they will become oil saturated, hence the billowing fog behind the car….

Dreksnot has a great idea with the prescreen between the turbo and the scavenge pump… It would be easy to install one in a scavenge box if you have that… With twins, often the turbos dump into a common return “box” and from there the scavenge pump does it’s thing…

The pump photo below is a stock photo, and not my actual pump, though mine was just like it, though much dirtier…

[Oxtar41]

Originally Posted by SSE 4 2SS

Which pump are you running…

My build prior to a dry sump system sported a Turbowerx EXA scavenge pump…

I blew up a turbo, badly, and ended up getting a couple of bearings in the scavenge pump itself… As part of the clean-up/repair of the car for the next pass, we removed the pump housing cover plate, removed the bearings the escaped from the turbo center section. Put 12 volts worth of electrons in it and it worked good as new… This was with several minutes of run time against locked up impellers…

As has been mentioned, losing a scavenge pump most probably won’t hurt the turbos, as they will become oil saturated, hence the billowing fog behind the car….

Dreksnot has a great idea with the prescreen between the turbo and the scavenge pump… It would be easy to install one in a scavenge box if you have that… With twins, often the turbos dump into a common return “box” and from there the scavenge pump does it’s thing…

The pump photo below is a stock photo, and not my actual pump, though mine was just like it, though much dirtier…

I'm not sure what brand the pump is, I bought the car in December. There actually isn't any markings / part numbers on it. I'm assuming it came with the IPS turbo kit, which was installed on the car 20k miles ago. I've tried looking and finding out info on the pump or what came with those kits and there's not much out there that's helpful. The turbos are Garret gt3582's and I did check shaft play in them are everything is good there. I was planning on some long trips with the car this summer and the only thing that makes me a little nervous is the scavenge pump. Might buy a spare to keep in the trunk on long trips just in case.