Thickness of alloy sump

[Hennie Marais]

Has anyone drilled or tapped the alloy part of the sump, What is the average thickness of it, I need to fit my turbo drain but I don't really want to weld something to it, drilling and tapping is easier for me then can just use a screw in fitting.

 

[cribbj]

I drilled my upper oil pan awhile back to install an auxiliary pickup tube for a prelube system. IIRC the thickness of the pan was 5-6mm, so you should be able to cut at least a few threads in that.

Alternately you could do something similar to what I did - drill the hole & put a male AN to pipe adapter fitting through it with sealing type washers, and hold it on the backside with a coupling or a lock nut. In this way you could couple your hose to it and dump straight into the sump.

For a turbo oil drain, I'd probably drill out the AN fitting a bit - after all, you're not looking for a 3000 psi seal, you're looking for a fitting with very low restriction for a small amount of foamy oil trying to find its way back into the sump.

 

[Hennie Marais]

Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to know/hear.

 

[Lextreme II]

The alloy sump is pretty thin especially on the SC400 side area. The LS400 front is pretty thick. I weld two 1/2" npt female bungs to the side sump.

 

[Hennie Marais]

Mine were 4mm at the spot I drilled and tapped, But I used a 3/8NPT (+-17mm)taper thread fitting with some liquid tread sealer and it worked perfect, normal treads mine strip out there.

Thanks

 

[stevechumo]

Has anyone drilled or tapped the alloy part of the sump, What is the average thickness of it, I need to fit my turbo drain but I don't really want to weld something to it, drilling and tapping is easier for me then can just use a screw in fitting.

I threaded the fitting to the upper part of the oil pan, put a nut inside the pan to lock the fitting. It still leaked a little. I then JB-welded it and it's just perfect with no leak. I love JB-weld...:wink:

 

[Hennie Marais]

I'll keep that in mind and keep an eye open for any leaks.

Thanks

 

[ed_ma61]

just weld on an alloy AN male bung of your size

game over.

 

[poorsupra]

Bump from the dead. Having all kinds of turbo smoking issues with my current drain set up. Probably going to need to pull the upper pan, drill and tap it.

I'm currently running a -10 return, 4ft return, 20 degree slope at most. Tried buying a oil scavenge pump to help with oil pooling up(no luck) bought a new turbo(no luck), so I'm going to use a 7/8 or 1" ID hose and fittings for my return. So tired of a smoking turbo. Only under load and after hard pulls so I know its oil pooling up.

 

[gloverman]

where does it presently enter the sump?

 

[poorsupra]

The turbo is located on the passenger side, front top, near the valve cover/behind the headlight. All my piping is crowding the passenger side of the block. So the drain enters on the driverside rear the block into the oil level sending unit opening. I made a flange with a -10 fitting. In the 4/5ft -10 drain it drops maybe 10" total, very shallow.

So I'm trying to lower the entry point, and move it forward to shorten the length, also making the ID huge

 

[poorsupra]

Here's a pic

 

[gloverman]

With that amount of fall I wouldn't expect a problem. We have a van with the turbos mounted beside the gearbox and we were able to make drains that work.

You do have a very long drain though.

 

[poorsupra]

You think it's the length and the small ID of the -10an? I really don't want to remove the upper pan. But I'll do anything to stop the smoke.

 

[gloverman]

That would me the minimum I would want but most of the time we are one size bigger. you would say 12AN while I would go with 19mm id. Also what sort of flow do you have to the turbo. We had another workshop fitting up turbos and then bringing them to use when things didn't work. He had the oil feeds way too big for the selected turbos.

 

[Sudsy]

Why not just make a plate to fit where the oil level switch is

 

[gloverman]

I thought that was where it was Sudsy? Well that"s How I read post 11.

 

[poorsupra]

I have a -4an feed, NO restrictor. I see 85psi oil at WOT/ on cold starts.

And yes it is into the oil level sending unit/switch on the driver side, towards the rear, above the steel pan.

Think I should get some -12 braided and try my original set up?

 

[poorsupra]

Ps, thanks for the replies guys, the forums seen to be dead. I appreciate it. If anyone is interested in my build thread I have one on here and club lex.

 

[stevechumo]

The oil pressure might be too much for the turbo. I blew a turbo without the oil feed restrictor. Putting it inline and fixed the issue.