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While we’re in there we took the opportunity to add a trick oil pan baffle from Improved Racing. After the horror story our driver extraodinaire Billy Johnson told us of chucking a rod through the block of an LS1 swapped FD RX-7 from oil starvation, we were sold! Billy was test driving the engine swapped RX-7 at Buttonwillow one day noting it was one of his favorite combinations he’s ever driven just as he entered the long Riverside sweeper when he saw the oil pressure guage drop to zero. Despite throwing the clutch in and shutting the engine down immediately the damage had already been done. Even on street tires, the RX-7 is capable of generating cornering loads high enough to starve a stock LS1 oil pickup. This is a known issue with LS pans of all variety. Improved Racing has designed a relatively simple must have for any track driven LS powered car without a dry sump or Accusump oiling system.
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| Top view of the Improved Racing oil pan baffle. Will this keep us from having to install an Accusump? We will see. We had to use one in Dai Yoshihara’s drift car as it pulls up to 1.7 g’s. Will the FD need it? The Improved Racing baffle has inner baffles with trap doors to keep oil around the pickup. |
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| Underside view. Seems pretty simple but even the hinges had extra thought put into them. Improved custom makes the hinges to their specifications as other commercially available options were found to bind under certain conditions. We think this baffle will keep oil around the pickup up to around 1 G. GM drysumped the Z06. They must know something, right? |
The Improved Racing aluminum baffle is a direct replacement bolt-in for the factory baffle with 3 one-way hinged doors. Under steady driving conditions it allows oil to flow freely past. Under high-load turns or acceleration oil that would normally slosh to the sides of the pan away from the oil pickup is retained in the center section surrounding the oil pickup by the trap doors held shut by the g loading and oil pressing against it keeping the oil pickup well supplied until the vehicle returns to a neutral loading.
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| The Improved baffle compared to the stock LS1 baffle. The stock baffle has no dividers or trap doors on the underside for oil retention. |
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| While the LS1 pan does have dividers in it, it has no trap doors and it’s still insufficient to keep the oil pickup fed under high cornering loads. |
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| The Improved Racing baffle installed! |
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| Additional strips of aluminum help channel oil stripped from the crank by the windage tray into the sump area. |
