I'm fairly confident that I'd be pretty happy with any of the known names oil sump / baffled oil pan solution. Last year I started to track my car and I was told by many of the race car mini guys at the track if I plan on keeping it up, I will want to go and get an oil pan baffle.

Seems like Jan at RMW has an interesting solution with baffles around the oil pick up and Way has a nice one that's a simple mouse trap welded into a brand new pan - I'm sure both would work great. Just need to chose one.

So, for those of you have one, which one do you have, why did you pick it, would you buy again?

Thanks!
Mitch

 

I have looked at a few of these baffles from time to time, but never seriously consider them. Each time I thought what if they make the situation worst. On the surface the design seems sound but I think if you can see what is going on in the oil sump the problem is more complex than I can imagine. I wonder how were these designs tested. On the ones with trap doors, what if a door got stuck and not swing freely? Even if they swing freely, can the doors create enough hinderance to the flow that the level inside the trap is lower? There are some old threads on this topic.

 

Hey V,

I searched through some older threads, but was wanting to see if there's state of the art thinking and/or for folks that have had them on the track over the last number of years, how they're working out and/or problems they've run into.

I have a sign on my cubicle: There's no problem you can't make more complicated.



~Mitch

 

We obviously like ours the best, but we have our reasons. We came up with it about 10yrs ago for our personal race car as I had done some events at tracks with some banking like Gateway in St Louis and was concerned with starving. The design came from pans that had been made for other brand of race cars and we adapted it to the MINI pan.
There is a design with just baffles with notches cut for oil flow. We think those notches are too small and the baffles then can become a issue getting the oil back to the pick up fast enough.
We also saw some of the designs that hang from the block either not go all the way to the bottom of the pan allowing oil to still slosh over, and we were concerned with them coming loose from hanging.
The trap doors on ours are large to get the oil in fast. We also have the hinges pretty loose to prevent them from ever binding or sticking, but also allows it to flop closed quickly. Then the space around the pickup is larger to keep more volume around the pickup.
Again we are bias as that is what we use. But if you want to know for sure it works I can tell you the RSR race team was using our pan in all 3 of their cars the last 2yrs they raced. We also had a pikes peak team using it so we know it works on real race cars.
https://www.waymotorworks.com/wmw-ba...n-r50-r53.html

 

I talked to the local MINI dealer service tech manager who has been with the dealer since it opened about this. He first asked me how many miles I had on the car and how often I would be doing track days and autocrosses. I told him that I have about 135K and it would be 1 to 2 track days a year. He was totally unconcerned about the oil starvation for the limited amount of time the engine would be starved. He said that there would be some time with less than optimal oil pressure and quantities which would lead to more wear on the all parts, however, the amount of time is not much.


In my case with my Justa, I estimate maybe up to 10 seconds with less then optimal oil for the whole day. He suggested that if I was that concerned, with my mileage, add no more than a half quart of oil. So, run with between 5.25 and 5.5 quarts. He said that the extra half quart will do no harm. I did what he said and it seemed to do the trick.


Still think that the baffles are cool but probably not all that needed for a street car that sees occasional track time. If you are on a banked track for long periods by all means get one seems like it would be necessary. At PIR, probably not needed; at ORP in Grass Valley - maybe, never driven it but looks fun.


I will never forget the question at my first track day at the Novice drivers meeting - The Question: What about elevation changes? The answer: Um... if you have elevation changes of more than a few inches you have done something very wrong.

 

At PIR as you say, probably not needed. I want my car to be in the shape that I don't have to think much about "oh is this track going to be too sloped and cause a problem" and use that as a determining factor. I'd love to do all of the PNW tracks in 2018. We'll see which ones I can actually make it to.

 

I have the RMW oil pick up baffle and It seems to work just fine. I got it while I was changing my oil pan gasket.

 

I'm installing an oil pressure gauge. If the timing works out, I can install that keeping the OEM pan and get some experience with how the pressure changes. I'm planning on getting a new oil pan so will probably get the WMW pan and drill/tap a port for oil temp before installation. Then I could see the pressure change with the new pan. It would likely be subjective to some extent, as I am pretty sure I will not be comparing data from the track. Will need to find a place close to the house to do some spirited driving.