I got a chance to visit the shop yesterday (unfortunately you stepped out already Mike), but I got some hands on experience with the new extra-capacity oil pans. You guys WON'T be disapointed. The amount of engineering that goes into these things is incredible.

I'm definitely excited to see your products hit the market. Unfortunately I don't feel like it's my place to elaborate, but it looks like most of the major issues that plague our specific cars during track sessions are being addressed.

Thanks Victor! Sorry I missed you, but I hope the guys looked after you okay without me! Anytime you want to heap praise on us and our products like that is fine by us.

Pans on order are just about ready to go out...

Mike

Do the pans come with an installation manual ;)

Yes, they come with a rather lengthy install guide (at least, that's what I heard on the phone, mine won't be here until sometime next week).

I'll give a brief write up today when I install it. Track test will be Monday.

Besides these oil pans, what other products do guys currently have available to the public?

Oil pan installed!

Pretty straightforward, the guys at A.M.P. provided extremely detailed instructions with a picture of each step. Maybe a little over the top but better too much than too little!

The hardest part is getting the OEM oil pan gasket to even think about starting to separate. The gasket film is very thin and it is hard to get the separator in there. I ended up lowering the front sway bar to give myself more room, once you get a foothold it is easy.

Set aside some time for this as the oil keeps dripping down, and every time I thought I had the last of it more appeared. Can't have any oil on the surfaces to receive the sealant.

You might want a helper for the final assembly step as holding the oil pan in place while trying to get the first couple of bolts in while laying on you back is a little tough. Once you have 2 bolts hand tightened it is easy enough.

That pesky tab that the back of the oil tray bolts to did have to be bent out of the way. Maybe there is a way to do it with it there but it was in the way every way I tried.

Road test tomorrow, track test Monday.

Great, thx for reporting back Chris... looking forward to getting mine this week and installing next weekend.

So, any pics?

Sorry, didn't get to take any pics. Things were a little rushed getting the car prepped, spent the morning installing a new bathroom door :)

Does anyone installed this oil pan on a VQ35HR ?
Still avalaible ?

Thanks for help !

If Chris is the first non-AM performance person to install the pan, then how could anyone have it installed on a VQ35 motor? :shakes head:

I don't know how I missed this. I need one, so put me down.


edit, nevermind. I really want it, but just found out after writing this that I need to come up with 6000 for quarterly taxes in the next 6 weeks. I wasn't planning for that much.

I'm pretty sure it won't be VQ35 compatible, based on my previous research into the reverse (asking around about VQ37 compatibility of VQ35 oil baffle stuff on the market, e.g. Cosworth).

Ditto. I should have my car back from Baker (LTH install) on Weds, and then my pan arrives on Thursday for a weekend install here at my place :yum:

Well good and bad today from NJMP. The oil pan worked well, but in the heat I was plagued with 280F oil temps and power cuts after about 6 laps each session. Towards the end of each 30 minute session I was also having fuel cuts from fuel starvation exiting turn 9 which is a long, fast, sweeping, banked 180 degree right hand turn. I haven't even put on the fast tires yet so I expect it to be worse tomorrow with the extra grip.

ughhh, that's frustrating... at least you didn't have to worry about oil starvation! lol remind us, what is your oil cooling setup?

have fun tomorrow!

Oil cooling setup is the AE Performance oil cooler, which is basically the 72 row series 1 Setrab core and AN-8 lines with a non-thermostatic plate. Normally this will keep the oil temps in the 260-265 range driving hard, but this track has you at high RPM's and full throttle a lot so it wasn't taking long to climb up. I'll be looking to add some baffles around the oil cooler to try and maximize air flow, or step the lines up a size or both. I think the best solution long term will be the setup that AM Performance uses with the oil to water cooler.

Chris, I got religion recently on oil cooling... airflow to the core is a huge variable to manage... before you try anything else, consider doing the following:

- create an 'airbox' out of thin sheet aluminum leading up to the core... the goal is not to make it look pretty but to keep the air from flowing around it and force it to flow through
- try to move the oil cooler core back just a bit closer to the radiator core... or put some high temp foam between the two

Should buy you another 20+ degrees F!

You may be able to rig something up at the track to test

Travis

Thanks to the team at AM Performance my new oil pan is installed as well! Can't wait to put it to the test.

The guys at AM are helping me with suspension, LSD and brake tuning now! They are committed to sorting both race cars and street cars. Between 370z race cars and several street cars they are truly figuring out how to optimize this platform for both track and street.

Thanks Travis. Won't get a chance to try today, but I'll give it a shot before Summit Point in 2 weeks.

Hi guys,

Glad to hear that our first customers are happy with what they got! I would like to drop in for a second here and address the issue with the tab at the back of the pan. This kit has been developed as a direct fit. We have updated our instruction booklet on this item to include the information that if a 1/4" drive universal socket is used, then the pan can be installed without bending the tab. It's still kind of a pain, but we have installed several of these without needing to do any bending of anything. A gear wrench can also be used, but is less effective (and more frustrating!).

Thank you for pointing this out, we really appreciate any and all feedback from our customers. In this case, it helped us to revise our instructions to be as clear as possible. We aim to bring the highest quality product possible to market, and that absolutely includes the clarity of the installation manual, so thanks for being a part of making our product better, Chris!

Mike

:hello:

LOL, I get it! We are working on that question right now. We had to get our race team organized and established, and now that we are getting close to that, we are starting to address our parts business. We will definitely make sure that you guys know what we have available once we get there, though!

Mike

P.S. I think it's safe to tell you it'll all be performance oriented. Don't look for neon kits or 22" wheels, or bogus "racing" parts...

Looking forward to that! Thanks Mike.

Thanks Mike. The clearance is really low. I probably had a tool that would have worked but I was a bit rushed so my patience run out :)

Yeah, there has to be one fastener in every project that is a pain. It's a law of nature!

Mike

Excellent news :)

Just got my pan from the UPS driver. It's really quite amazing, very well engineered and built, good job. Unfortunately I realized yesterday that I'm out of Motul again and haven't re-ordered in time, so I have to put off installation until sometime next week when I've got fresh oil to fill it with :)

mine is tricked out with +10whp... prob why it's taking so long!

You got gipped, mine has a glowing neon sign on the bottom worth at least 15 :p

neon oil pans are so 2010

... move along, people! ha :D

They must have gone old school on mine? It's gold plated and cooling fins spell DUB?

On serious side now we need extra capacity finned rear dif cover, with temp gauge. Or perhaps a real simple cooler for rear diff.

Please add the torque spec for the drain plug to the instructions. The instructions simply state that the drain plug is pre-torqued which is fine for the first fill, but need reference for future changes. Thanks again for a great product!

Actually, yours are the only set of instructions that didn't have that info! In our rush to get you that pan in time for your track day, we missed that torque spec. Subsequent instructions have been updated to show that the correct figure is 25 ft/lbs.

Mike

Thanks Mike! You're the best. Thanks to the extra 20 hp from the oil pan I was able to win my class.

Mine arrived today. Looks great and instructions are as good as we could ask for... Calls out in bold all the potential stupid mistakes that we all might make and hopefully will help folks avoid doing those (wrong torque spec, wrong bolt sequence, screwdriver to remove gasket, etc).

I really like the design... the gate approach is simple and will be very effective, I think.

Look forward to installing and sharing more feedback.

Highly recommend this upgrade.

Buck up, folks! :tup:

Any chance of providing oil temp sensor mounting locations? Didn't see any in the pictures.

We decided against providing a temp sensor bung for a couple reasons. The first of which is that the factory temp sensor is already on the outlet side, which is providing the temperature of the oil in the pan, so the information from a sensor in the pan would be redundant. The second reason is that anytime you add a bung or sensor, we insist that we have a good reason to do so, because no matter how good the design is, a hole with a fastener in it will never be as reliable as solid material.

If you are running a cooler, and want to monitor it's effectiveness/temperature drop, then adding your additional temp sensor inline after the cooler is the proper place for that. In fact, this is just what we have done with our race cars.

Thanks!

Mike

I agree but I'm running two sensors in the AAM oil pan spacer I have now. One for the Defi gauge and the other for the oil cooler fan. I like where they are and it gives me good oil temp control and indication.

Thanks for the info.

Mine's installed now. Wasting time on the forums while I wait for the Ultra Grey to cure a little before refilling my oil. Only complication was removing my old AAM oil pan spacer that's been on the past 14K miles (breaking the old ultra grey to separate the solid spacer from the block). Details at the end of the journal thread if you're looking at the same swap.

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-installed.jpg

Nice! Glad the install went smooth, looks great!

Mike