[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Steven, a dry sump system is intended primarily to keep oil going to the engine under all circumstances. Even upside-down, for dry sump systems installed in aircraft!!

The general idea is that you have two oil pumps. One is a high-volume low-pressure pump, and that sucks oil out of the crankcase and moves it into an oil tank. The second pump is a high-pressure pump which gets oil out of the tank and sends it to the bearings and such. The tank is built to hold a decent amount of oil (9 quarts in the stock 914-6 setup) and can keep supplying oil for a good while even when the pickup in the sump is only sucking air.

A side benefit is that the tank acts as a radiator (or a cooler), though not a very good one. It's definitely more than was in there before.

Another benefit is that the oil that gets picked up in the sump is often foamy from getting pushed through all the oil passages and getting whipped around by the crankshaft. When it gets put into the tank, the oil has a chance to settle down and de-foam, so you get oil going to the bearings and not oil and air.

There are more benefits to running a dry-sump system. That's why the 911 used such a setup. It is, however, more expensive. And that's why the 914-4 was not dry-sumped.

--DD