LS3 oil pan and rod shift - G50-52

[2001ultima]

All, For the those that have installed a LS3 with the stock GM oil pan and use rod shift, have you had any clearance issues? If yes, what mods did you do to clear the oil pan? any solutions without converting to cable shift? Thanks, Jim

[xrtim]

Im using the LS1 5.3, the sump was very close to the chassis at the front of the engine and I think the centre rod shift bracket (will have to check that). I cut the sump to fit and re welded plus modifications for dry sump. If you want a picture let me know
Regards Tim

[2001ultima]

xrtim said:

Im using the LS1 5.3, the sump was very close to the chassis at the front of the engine and I think the centre rod shift bracket (will have to check that). I cut the sump to fit and re welded plus modifications for dry sump. If you want a picture let me know
Regards Tim

Tim, Yes, if you could post some photos that would be appreciated. Did you have to modify the front corner to clear the shift rod? Dry Sump, are you still currently wet sump, but made to provisions for dry sump?

Thanks, Jim

[xrtim]

Yes I did have to cut the front corner of the sump, had a quick look last night and the shift rod joint was really close to the pan before being cut. The oil pan is from the Truck version and miles to deep so this was also cut and welded, engine was wet sump but has been modified now to run dry sump. I will send you a picture tonight (my first attempt at aluminium welding)

[xrtim]

clearest image I could get from underneath the car. I was always going to modify my sump because of the size so assumed that my rod clearance issues were also caused by the truck sump. I was going to use the LS3 and dry sump that. My sump still has the turbo return bungs left to be welded in to finish it off. Hope that is of some use

Tim

[2001ultima]

Tim, ok, thanks. This reaffirms what we need to do as well. When you get to it, would like to see the dry sump pan photos. Thanks, Jim

[xrtim]

Hi Jim
It's hard to see from the picture but first I milled the sump to correct height then cut down a couple of inches across the sump front and back and the from the bottom of the cuts join them together in a v so that when you look from the engine side the oil must flow into the 2 x troughs formed. This gave me a protected area to run the scavenge lines from the middle of the sump back to the pump and then back to the tank. I have no room to put the tank in the normal position beside the engine because the turbochargers are in the way so my tank is in the rear beside the gearbox. I am going to return the oil to the engine via the M16 oil gallery plug above the filter housing in the sump. The remote oil filter is now bolted to the back of the head beside the gearbox and has ports for temperature and pressure and feed for turbos. oil gallery will be blocked off in engine block so not to flow back towards standard oil pump position.
Regards Tim

[Steve_D]

xrtim said:

.......My sump still has the turbo return bungs left to be welded in to finish it off. ....
Tim

Why not take the turbo returns to the tank?

Steve

[xrtim]

Hi Steve
turbos are at the front of the engine. sump return gives me a near vertical fall for the oil via gravity of about 14''. the tank is in the rear of engine bay beside the gearbox linkage. I bought the factory rear mount tank forgetting that the rod shift would go straight through it so the only place it would fit is in the space between the end of the chassis and the body work half in the chassis and half in free air (I'm close to the factory and they let me measure up on finished car), this gives me a long and shallow return for the turbo via gravity and would mean pumping .The reason the bungs are not fitted yet is because there is a laminova oil pre heater cooler next to the pump mounted low on the passengers side (UK) limiting turbo oil return placement and on the drivers side I am just sorting out the fuel pumps,surge tank and filter placement along with the gearbox laminova oil pre heat and cooler. Once these are fitted then I can choose the correct position to weld in the turbo oil sump return bungs to miss everything. Its a bit long winded but I like doing jobs once
Tim