Believing in a specific product enough to support it wholeheartedly has been a business leap for Krista and Shawn Van Horn. Titan Speed Engineering has been an innovator in hardcore racing engine hardware for decades, and this couple created a new facility to continue the brand’s familiar racing and performance gerotor oil pumps.
Titan’s original owners, Bob and Heather Sanders, were at the point of retirement when an unfortunate shop fire devastated the company, and the Sanders opted to step aside rather than rebuild. The Van Horns saw a valuable position in the marketplace for its pumps, and wanted the Titan name and oil pump designs to continue. As Van Horn tells, it was Scott Sykes, who worked for the Sanders, that is to be credited for digging through the rubble of the fire to retrieve what he could of the company’s engineering assets, and later reprogramming machines to continue production.
Spur Gear vs. Gerotor Fundamenrals
Mind you—these are not just any oil pump; the gerotor name originates from combining the words GEnerating and ROTOR. Many late-model engine designs, like the Chevrolet LS and Ford Coyote engines, now incorporate gerotor pump designs onto their block face and crankshaft. However, those spin thier gerotor pumps at crank speed. Titan’s wheelhouse is creating gerotor oil pumps for 1960’s to today’s OEM and aftermarket wet sump oiling blocks as a step between common spur gear pumps and more exotic dry sump oiling systems. By taking the gerotor design, and spinning it at the traditional oil pump speed (half of crankshaft speed) a new level of efficiency can be achieved.
The Titan modular housing design has varied housing layouts and gear sizes. The gerotor-design pump mechanism is where the magic happens to defeat cavitation.
The gerotor pump can only be compared to a spur gear design as they rotate two driven gears inside the pump case. These two pump designs vary greatly in all other aspects. Oil is drawn from the reservoir in a spur gear pump and travels between the gear teeth as the gear teeth rotate.
Unlike a spur gear with a direct mesh of identical teeth, the gerotor’s internal gear is typically engineered with one tooth less than the outer. As the two gears rotate, a cavity between the two gears moves and pressurizes the oil. Between the inner and outer tooth mesh, there is always a contact surface that prevents oil from leaking from the cavity.
