[Fot] Oil pan baffle design - help me think this through...

[Mark Eginton]

Tony Drews wrote:
> Mark, I've run this design for a few years  (probably at least 5 if I 
> think about it) and don't have starvation issues due to the baffle.  I 
> do still see oil pressure drop in the left hand corners if the 
> engine's oil level is too low.  Adding a quart fixes that for a while.
>
> It's possible that a more elaborate design would let me run a bit 
> lower oil level.
>
> I don't remember the exact gap, but 1/2" sounds about right.  It ended 
> up this way because the car already had a portion of the baffle in 
> there - we just added the piece that takes it full length of the pan 
> (and has the gap to the bottom).  That's the 2nd piece you mention.
>
> - Tony
>
>
So I'm out there playing with cardboard and my oil pan and I says to 
myself - If I put this baffle at an angle following the line of the hole 
in the top of the oil plan like Tony and the TR Comp manual did; 
wouldn't it want to funnel the oil "down hill" (assuming hard left turn 
side forces) backwards away from the pickup to the 1/2" relief on a hard 
left corner? Thats a good ramp and with a 1/2 to 1g force its easy to 
picture oil moving very quickly.

So - would it be better to run the baffle parallel to the oil pan 
instead of parallel to the pickup? I considered doing it in one or two 
steps to keep it close to the pickup.

The second idea would be to construct it the way Tony did but put a 
couple of 1/4 to 1/2 inch vertical baffles on the face to inhibit the 
"down hill" flow back where the screen necks down a bit and at the 
bottom just before the 1/" relief.

At the end of the baffle where the welded on tab floats above the bottom 
1/2", do you think oil is moving toward the pickup due to consumption or 
away from it due to side forces assuming you are past the apex and on it 
hard?

Am I overthinking this???

M