Project 350Z- Increasing Oil Capacity with Jim Wolf Technology
We have been working on getting more power out of Project 350Z's VQ35DE engine in our latest series of articles. With success coming bit by bit, we decided that we had to give the oiling system a little help. Some 350Z's with highly modified suspension and sticky tires have suffered from engine oiling issues when driven on the track hard. The oil had simply sloshed away from the pickup under hard cornering allowing the oil pump to suck air. Since engine bearings are made of soft metal and depend on a hydrodynamic layer of pressurized oil to prevent damage, any interruption of oil pressure caused damage very quickly.
Since our car sees a lot of track and drift use we decided to take some time to do a little precautionary mod to help prevent this from happening. Jim Wolf Technology produces a very straight forward pan spacer that simply spaces the oil pan and oil pump pickup downwards. This gives the engine another quart of oil capacity and puts over an inch more oil on top of the pickup making it a lot less likely to suck air.
With the spacer in place, the pan is still well protected by the engine crossmember and under chassis braces so you don't have to worry about damaging the pan on lowered cars. This is a very easy to install and simple mod that, although it doesn't give power, does give greater peace of mind.
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The Jim Wolf Technology pan spacer is just that, an aluminum spacer that goes between the engine's aluminum upper pan and the stamped steel lower pan. Another spacer also lower the oil pump pick up deeper into the newly deepened pan.
The first step is to remove the pan. Howard Watanabe of Technosquare uses this handy Snap-On tool that you hammer in place, then tap around the pan perimeter. The tool cuts the old sealer quickly and easily without damaging the pan. Screwdrivers and putty knives often damage the pan rails and make re-sealing the pan a pain in the ass.
The tool makes short work of the sealer and the pan is off in no time.
Nissan puts a decent windage tray in the VQ35DE. A windage tray is the louvered piece of sheet metal over the engine's main caps. Its job is to strip the spinning cloud of oil from around the crank. This helps oil return to the pan but also serves to increase power and reduce oil temperatures.
