Ski

With all this talk about the oil pan gasket...I consider myself very lucky. We installed my gasket clean and dry, only put a dab of black sealant in the corners on the front and rear - two years ago. Running 15-17 psi.

Jim(jwl) had a bit of a leak after we did his but the problem turned out to be his breather line. We got rid of the 3pc hard lines under the manifold so we ran 1 hose from the top of the breather to the MAF pipe. Turned out the top of hose, where bending, was sealing itself off. Got a Ford hose that had the 90° bend in it, installed, Jim rechecked the tightening procedure, no leaks.

Good luck with it.

keith

HAHAHA - B951S that's funny, we're making those also, mostly to see if they can be produced cheap enough for resale, but definitely for our shop cars (so we can run them hard right after rebuilds)

The problem IS blowby of course, as this is a common occurence right after a re-ring job. On a street car, if you have the patience to allow the car to break in slowly, you have no problem, but for the racers, a crutch of sort is needed!

In any event, a mass-produced, slip-onto-the-factory-bolts-in-the-oilpan retaining wall is the way to go, IMO.

m42racer

B951S,

No idea about cost, but they will be good. I expect Travis here will be able to fill us in on cost and availablitity. I expect they will be made on their CNC mill, so once they write the program, they will repeat in numbers. As for the ends, I have no idea, but I cannot see this been a problem to work out.
Regardless of need , this way should be than the gasket, and reuseable. If enough interest, I'm sure they will produce at a reasonable price. Lets see the interest. Who would be interested. If there is more than 10 I'm sure Travis could get them to make them.

MySwiss

Well we are in the middle of gettig estimates done by three of local machine shops, for exactly this type of oil pan gasket retainer. We should be able to come back with a price and details during the course of the week.

MySwiss

Well we are in the middle of getting estimates done by three of local machine shops, for exactly this type of oil pan gasket retainer. We should be able to come back with a price and details during the course of the week.

Chris Prack

An engine with sound fundamentals really shouldn't need this. I know some if not all of what I am about to say has already been said but.....

I have not had problems with the oil pan gasket bulging on ANY motor that I have installed one on. Carefully clean both sides and install the gasket with Dow Corning 730 in the corners and a little where the oil pump meets the block and properly torque it. Smearing anything the length of the gasket will cause it to fail every time.

I agree with superjet in that the pegs and rail, while clever, are just an elaborate band-aid and is really not addressing the real issue.

Danno

I agree with Chris and Superjet.1. If crankcase pressure is such that it blows out a properly-installed oil-pan gasket, something is wrong. In my case where I installed 3 pan-gaskets in 2-months, I made the mistake of using silicone sealant the 1st time, which was so slick, I almost killed myself in the garage by slipping on a couple of spilled drops. Then the 2nd time, I got a little oil on the interface between the new clean no-sealant gasket and the engine-block. It's really hard to keep the bottom of the block clear of all oil residue when doing the oil-pan gasket with the block in the car.

The 3rd time I did it much better with a combination of Yamabond in the corners and 3M Fastak Weatherstripping adhesive on the straights. As a test, I even ran the oil-pan with no bolts installed and it held just fine.

Ok, back to retaining a gasket with a high-pressure crankcase. Think about how much power you're losing with pressurizing the crankcase. Dry-sump engines have been shown to gain 20hp with just adding a vacuum rather than leaving the crankcase at atmosphereic pressure.

B951S

Agree, you should not need it but it helps if the installtion is not exactly right and the gasket tries to bulge. My last 2 failures I put down to installtion and this should help.

m42racer

While the pressure in the Crankcase is causing many other problems, it still seems a good idea to have a BETTER type of Gasket, in the event there is higher than acceptable Crankcase pressure. If High pressure is evident, then a Leak Down test should be done to confirm the condition of the Ring Sealing or other contributing factors. At least with a SOLID type of gasket, the installer could Torque the Pan bolts without fear of Gasket Spread.

If others are looking into this, then we will wait. No ponit in having 2 versions. How different could they be. I asked if this would be a good idea sometime ago, and now it appears some thought so. Next time I'm not suggesting. I'll keep the ideas to myself.

B951S

I did not realize there was as much activity going on behind the scenes regarding aftermarket solutions for this gasket bulge problem. I can't see what something like this would be difficult to market. The PD CNC soluton sould work good but maybe it id complex / expensive and if a simple retainer provides the same type of benefits, why bother? Anyway, as always, rennlist is an excellent catalyst to getting things moving for the 951 aftermarket and sharing ideas.

As I have demonstrated, it is perfectly feasible for most of us to make this at home for much cheaper than a tuner is ever likely to offer the same product. Sure it may look prettier. ..

here's mine installed. Got it back on the road today.

B951S

another.