Stock, scraper, or baffles for first events

#1

I’m running out of prep time for any shot at the April comp schools and the car is still at the cage builder’s. There are many other things that must be done just to pass tech. Do I dare run a school or an event without any kind of upgrade to the stock pan or oiling system? The motor has 138K miles. I haven’t had a chance to do leak down, compression, or dyno tests and haven’t disassembled anything so don’t know the overall condition of the motor. When I can attend to the oiling system what is the consensus on the best budget upgrade path?

#2

Hard motorsports sells pans with baffled already installed. Pretty good deal with a core. Is do that now and run it.

#3

Run it.

RP

#4

[quote=“Patton” post=64745]Run it.

RP[/quote]

If its a matter of spending the time and money elsewhere just to get it done, I agree!

#5

I’d get an I-J scraper and one of the several baffle solutions, each of which has a write up in the Engine\Oil system forum. The Hardmotorsports baffle is probably the best value.

That’s the easy part, the harder part is installing the thing because you have to lift the engine up several inches

http://www.harborfreight.com/1000-lb-capacity-engine-support-bar-96524.html

and remove the oil pump and pressure relief valve.

Be sure to lift the engine up high enough that you can R/R the oil pan w/o first removing the oil pump. You’ll be grateful for this later.

Installing the scraper is a painful process of test fitting, cutting away metal, more test fitting, more cutting, until finally it fits well. Then you put goobage on, and fasten the scraper in place to the underside of the engine using all, or pretty close to all, of the ~60 6mm bolts that hold the oil pan on. Then you let it sit over night so the goobage will dry, take the bolts out and put the oil pan on. Or at least attempt to put the oil pan on because you’ll find that for some reason the oil pan won’t quite fit back into place properly. That’s when you realize that you left a bolt in the scraper. After removing the oil pan bolt that you forgot you’ll find that the oil pan still won’t go back on quite right. You’ll be thinking “WTF is the problem here” and that’s when you’ll find that you left a 2nd bolt in the scraper.

The third attempt to fit on the oil pan will seem to go ok but one of the 6mm bolts won’t thread for money or love. After fighting with the SOB for 15min you’ll finally pull the goddamned pan back off to see why the bolt won’t thread. And you’ll find that it didn’t thread because there was already a goddamned bolt in that hole. You’d forgotten a 3rd MFing bolt in the goddamned scraper. Wondering if this was a sign that you shouldn’t be trusted with tools you’ll pull the 3rd bolt out, and the oil pan will finally go on just fine.

Order of march for layers:
Block
Goobage
Scraper
Gasket
Pan

Inspect carefully what the 6mm bolts thread into, iron or aluminum. Clean each bolt hole with a dab of mineral spirits on a rifle bore brush. Clean the oil off the bolts. Torque the ones going into iron slightly more than the IIRC 6ftlbs, and the ones going into aluminum slightly less. Use blue locktite.

Obviously that’s no rinky-dink project. Only you know how much available time you have before the event and it’s not exactly life and death to have better oil control. Theres engines that have lasted years with nothing.

Before you do anything tho, you need to get a feel for the health of the engine. There’s no sense screwing with the oil pan if the engine isn’t sound. Do a compression test and confirm that all the cylinders are w/in 10% or so. If they are, figure out when it would be convenient for you to do the oiling system work. If the compression test doesn’t come out so well, then you need to figure out if it’s a top end problem, bottom end problem or both.

#6

Oil pan gaskets leak…just use the grey RTV on the crank scraper, and the black RTV on the pan. The machined surfaces mate up so there will be no leaks down the road. CB

#7

Scott,
There are literally tears streaming down my face! But I don’t think I’m competent enough a wrench to have it go this well.

BTW, did you use the HF thingie to hold the engine up or lift it? I have a good hoist, but it’s busy holding up a trashed S54 motor. I like the thingie and would like justification to waste money on it.

#8

[quote=“RRhodes” post=64756]Scott,
There are literally tears streaming down my face! But I don’t think I’m competent enough a wrench to have it go this well.

BTW, did you use the HF thingie to hold the engine up or lift it? I have a good hoist, but it’s busy holding up a trashed S54 motor. I like the thingie and would like justification to waste money on it.[/quote]
A cherry picker type hoist is better for lifting things up than it is for holding things up. IMO holding things up for a while is hard on the hydraulic piston and will reduce it’s lifespan…always an issue when all your tools are from Harbor Freight. I’ve been thru two HF hydraulic pistons. This is likely less of an issue with a quality hoist.

The HF thingee I linked to is really convenient for work like this. Not only does it happily hold the engine up forever, but there’s no hoist legs under the front of the car to crawl over.