Aviaid’s John Schwarz reports that an enjoyable recent project has been development of a wet sump for a ‘Superperformance’ Ford GT40 recreation, a car so authentic it is accepted by the GT40 registry and has FIA papers for historic racing. Its 470 bhp V8 is built by Steve Warrior, whose UK company Aviaid supplies. Interestingly back in the day - well before Schwarz acquired it in 1998 - Aviaid made the original GT40’s six quart wet sump pan. “This latest one has an extended sump, making for a nine quart pan,” Schwarz reports.
“Currently we are very deep into vintage stuff,” Schwarz adds, “including a sump and five stage pump for a new engine for a 1971 AMC Javelin Trans Am car. We built all the originals in the day and now we're basically resupplying the same parts for them. Jim Jones down in North Carolina has inherited the Traco heritage and he is doing those engines under the TR-ACO banner.
“We are also doing sumps and pumps for Corvette, Camaro and Mustang vintage racers, prepared by Jones and others, including an engine builder over in France. We are doing sumps and pumps for vintage single seaters and Can Am racers too.
Aviaid offers this complete dry sump system for the 5.0 litre Ford Coyote
“It was Bruce McLaren who came to [original Aviaid owner] Tommy Davis and told him he needed a five and a half inch oil pan depth for his Can Am car. Tommy said, ‘Oh, it's gonna be tough with the six and a half inch deep oil pump’. So that's when he came up with the concept of an aftermarket dry sump package for Small or Big Block Chevrolets.
“The original Aviaid pump was part of that package, which was first raced in the October 1969 Los Angeles Times Grand Prix at Riverside in the McLaren Can Am cars of McLaren and teammate and winner of that event Denny Hulme. We are still making essentially the same pump today. We’ve upgraded the materials and the manufacturing techniques; the original ones didn't have O-ring sealing and we have improved the surface finishing, all that kind of stuff but it has the same principle of operation. And still the same mounting brackets.
“There's only a couple of ways to make the kind of oil pressure for the period of time in the volumes required. There is always someone who wants to know if they could power the pump with electricity. The problem is, most people don't really understand what it takes to drive oil. So you have to inform them that they would need to tow a 300 lb trailer with the necessary battery pack!
“Our technology works and you've got state of the art manufacturing behind it. We've got the flexibility and the availability to build anything you could conceivably want, and basically short order, and we can we provide individual components to complete systems.”