Originally Posted by young performance

while power does factor in, it's more about rpm than anything. However, the 2 do go hand in hand in a sense. In order to make more power, you usually need more rpm to do it (ie, larger cam). It's a little more involved than that but you get the picture. For example, you could have an 800 hp engine that should be dry sumped and 1000 hp that can stay wet sump. Let's say the 800 hp is similar to a supercat engine....510 ci turning 7400 rpm. You would need to dry sump that engine. You would have a hard time controlling the windage (air) coming off of the crank. On the flip side, let's say you had a 598 with a 4.0l whipple. It would be able to make 1000 hp at 5700 rpm, or less. There is no need to dry sump that engine.

Another thing to consider is power output. A consequence of horsepower is heat. The more power, the more heat that is rejected into the oil. In a wet sump setup, you can only have so much oil in the pan. It's get tough to control the slosh much over 14-15 qts. I did some pans in the past that were almost 18 qts. I played hell with them because once all of that oil starting moving around, it was impossible to control it. We had bulkheads and trap doors everywhere. It still sloshed all around and flooded the pan rails and leaked. With a dry sump setup, you can have as much as you want. We regularly use a 5 gallon tank. We run just over 4 gallons in the tank, but the lines, cooler, filter, etc, add up to another 4-5 qts. With the larger quantity of oil, it takes longer to heat it up and longer to contaminate it.
Eddie