Bike engined installations are notoriously particular about oil surge - the main reason contributing to the failure myths perpetuated on many forums. With a steady oil supply bike engines are surprisingly strong. Some bike engines appear need either a dry sump system or Accusump to ensure survival, others, seem to be able to get by without.

The Yamaha R1 (1999-2003) seems to fall somewhere in the middle. Taking the lead from the sidecar racing teams (who corner at over 2G) it appears the R1 can get away with just a baffle plate, a relief shroud and a small overfill of oil rather than the full expense of a dry sump system. Good news for those on a budget and/or a weight saving diet!

The most popular solution was released by All Bikes of Folkestone. A rather rough looking alloy baffle plate and simple relief valve 'tulip'. Now, I'll be the first to say that the item didn't appear to be worth the £80 it cost, however, it has been proven to work (see datalogs below). Recently, high quality CNC machined items have been manufactured (see links at bottom of page) as a higher quality and cheaper alternative.

This page details the process required to fit a sump baffle and relief valve tulip to ensure your engines survival.

The entire process will take a few hours, all that is required is the baffle, the relief tulip, a sump gasket, oil, drill, tap and die set and an appropriate allen key. Although it can be done with the engine in the car in situ, it is far easier to do the fitting on a bench.

Drain the oil from the engine and remove the sump bolts - loosening the sump bolts a 1/4 turn each in the order shown in the photo before fully removing them all.

Note: With the later CNC machined designs, the drilling and tapping may not strictly be necessary as the baffle is held in place by the oil pipe/pickup.

Now comes the part where you want to be careful - you will need to drill and tap two small holes into the webbing of the engine to affix the sump baffle to. Don't let this frighten you, it is an easy job, just don't rush and be careful. To ensure no swarf goes into the engine it is a good idea to masking/duct tape the entire engine base with only the webbing you are going to drill showing.

Carefully drill two holes into the webbing, be sure not to blow the swarf into the engine! :) Now tap the holes to your chosen fixing.

Depending which design you are using, you may need to remove the oil temp level switch, the oil delivery pipe and the oil strainer. Again, very simple parts to remove.

Now place the baffle in position and screw in place, replacinge the components you removed.

Next is the relief valve tulip. This simply pulls out, once off, place the tulip onto the top and place back in position.

Finally, replace the baffle (using a new gasket), tighten back up and refill with oil. It is common to overfill the engine with oil to ensure there is no surge. This is usually 250ml over the level recommended in the manual.

• The curvature/lips on the baffle is there for a purpose, it will allow the oil to easily drain down back to the sump, but should make it harder for the oil to rise up through the sump, so do not try and flatten these out!
  
  
• Do not worry about overfilling the engine, it will not cause damage - excess oil is simply blown out of the breather. Some race teams overfill by as much as 500ml, although 250ml is more common. This is usually accomplished by filling oil to the top of the sight glass and then overfilling by the desired amount.
  
  
• Shown below is an Excel spreadsheet detailing the oil pressure of an R1 engine Sylva Striker (courtesy of Richard Miles). The car is at Hethel airfield, running ACB10 tyres, an All Bike sump baffle and tulip overfilled by 250ml. As can be seen, the oil pressure is very consistent despite the sticky tyres and high lateral G loading