No Problem Dave, I will tell you what I know.. I purchased this valve and it arrived in a week or so. I have quite a bit of experience repairing various valves from plant work, so i took it apart.
Its a Diaphragm valve. These valves are usually pretty trouble free, big advantage is they are used in harsh environments etc. They are pretty standard in corrosive, abrasive, and very viscus type fluids which might create major problems with other valve like a gate, or a globe valve. Thing is they are NOT terribly great at keeping from product backing up from residual energy or pressure. They are more or less a check valve.
I verified this cause I could actually blow back through the valve one way right out of the box. The other way was sealed well.
This got me to thinking Although this valve probably will keep the oil pressurized in the accumulator, simply turning the valve off wont keep if from filling. I really couldnt see any cons to this, but maybe I might run into a sitaution where I want to keep oil out of it for some reason.
I went ahead and hooked it up, and installed the accumulator.
I finally got around to priming the Hemi last week after some issue's were taken care of (no oil to one side of the engine) but thats another story.
So I prime up the engine right off I notice that the accumulator is reading 65 lbs (shipped with 40 lbs) and figured it was already full.. It was too.
So the valve will permit the accumulator to be filled regardless if the valve is energized, closed or open.
I still cant think of a reason that this would be a bad thing.
-I mean if you forget to turn on the valve before you turn the engine off.
-After the run you can go ahead and shut the valve off after the pass and be 100% sure its full by the time you get back to the pits.
- to fill the accumulator up in the pits with a standard type valve you would need to get the engine RPM a good bit, this will let the engine oil pressure up a good bit higher past the set pressure on te other side of the piston.
If there is 40 psi, and your engine idle at 40 psi, the accumulator will not fill in other words. Holding the gas down for just a few seconds and the oil pressure does rise to 60+ psi, it will still take a few moments to fill the accumulator due to the way the valve is made. So I can see how the a check valve, and turning it off just after the pass once you reach the return road would insure there it enough time, and long enough higher maintained oil pressure for a complete fill, without trying to rev the engine up a few seconds, and snapping the valve shut just to catch 1/3 of what the accumulator will hold..
I plan on testing the system in a few days. I plan on timing how long it takes from the moment I hit the button for it to register on the oil pressure gauge. I also plan to time how long it will sustain oil pressure with the engine off. If anyone's interested I will post up the results. I also have a ball valve I might be able to test against. Might be interesting to see the diff in the two.
I also plan to measure how long it takes to fill, this might come in handy. Which IMO will be a measurable diff just cause the design of the valves..
here is the valves on Ebay for $34
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-2-Electric-Solenoi...DefaultDomain_0Moroso valve for $160
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/MOR-23908/
