360 dipstick dry - normal or uh oh?

Hey it's a Ferrari. Look under the car; is there a spot of oil here or there? If so, you're fine. If the ground is dry the sump is empty.

Ken

 

Very funny Ken! Some of us have Ferraris that don't leak. Mostly.

Birdman

 

I shouldn't talk; my putput shaft seals need replacing and I need that special toothed "wrench" thingie. There's one on eBay I may try and win, but it's almost like a one time use tool.

Ken

 

If you want to ck oil before driving the car and it had oil pressure when you parked it, and it does not have a pool of oil under it, don't worry about not having oil on the stick. As Ernie says, start it, look at the oil pressure, if it's ok, drive it and when it comes up to temp ck it then. Not as convienent as doing it before you leave home but that is the price to be paid for having the benefit of dry sump oiling.
The best way to go about living with one of these cars is to do all the checks and preperations when you put it away. The oil's hot, ck it then, plug in the battery tender and it will be ready to go when you want it.


Even Porsche oil level gauges did not read full until the oil was warmed up.

 

Brian
What is the "normal" fill level of the oil tank on one of the DS cars? 2/3rds or 3/4 full and how much does it vary 348 to 355 to 360?
Second, how much oil usually drains down to the pan after the car has been sitting for a week?
Thanks
Philip

 

I am not sure I know what you mean by normal fill level but I usually avoid going to the F mark unless I can ck it really smoking hot because a little too little is better than too much. And that is why I never go by what the book says for quantity. For one thing too many variables in how it is drained. Those clever guys in Italy put marks on the dipstick for a reason.


How much drains to the pan after a week has a bunch of variables but it is safe to say...most. If you were to do that prior to changing oil, and I have, when you pull the tank plug very little comes out, it's in the sump.

 

Helpful, Brian. Now I need some guidance. Can you estimate height of DS tank in 348/355 or 360 and tell me distance from top of tank to high mark on dipstick.

 

On 360's, when running on track with slick tyres, they suffer from surge despite the dry sump.

I over fill them by up to 30mm when hot to fix this. However, if you go to 40mm over it will suck into the inlet system, so it's critical.

360GT have the dipstick "ingeneously" re engraved to have a "Hot Max" mark, they also have an extensively baffled sump.

I mark 360 sticks to have a "Cold Max" at 3/4 full, and "Hot max" at 30mm Over normal Max.

 

Got it. Thanks Phil.

 

Didn't know that. We have several running with slicks and very quickly but have never encountered that. The oil tank at least with respect to the breathers is a better design than the 355.

The 355 does not need to be very overfull to suck oil into the breathers.

The

 

On a 360 it is about 10 inches.

 

Which measurement?

On my 308 DS conversion, the tank is about 20 inches tall. I am running 2/3rds full when oil is warm, engine at idle. That said, when the motor sat for a week, tank was still 2/3 and there was probably 2 qts in the pan (from where filter, cooler etc drained down).

While I will review the level and balance between "plenty in the tank" and discharge through the breather/catch tank when used on track, I'd like to pull collective wisdom to get it in the approximate range to start.

This sound about right?
Philip

 

Now I understand what you need to know. Sorry for being so slow to catch on. A 360 tank is such a convoluted design forget about that one.

A 355 tank has a small area in terms of square area when viewed from the top for a sump area to pull the oil out of. Other than that is is more or less symetrical so the internal vol will be more or less consistant over the height of the tank. With the sump area incl the tank is about 20-21 inches tall and the main body itself is about 18. The distance of the top to the F mark is about 7 inches.

So the tank has about 30-40% unused internal vol which just going from memory is about std for the DS motors I am familiar with.

In terms of the drain back your scavange pump prob has tighter clearances than a Ferrari pump. Also I don't know what weight oil you are using but that obviously has an effect and I have noticed over the years that drain back time is 10x faster with hot oil. Drain back time is also a matter of the location and height above the motor. On the car I work on at Bonneville it has a DS Rodak with the tank built on top of the trans. It drains back pretty quick because the bottom of the tank is over a foot higher than the sump.

Just out of curiosity how much is your set up holding with the level at 2/3 tank height?

 

Brian
Thanks. Probably my poor explanation. To be clear, I have had the oil to 145 - 150 degrees but not run it (hard or otherwise) on the track yet. I run Syntec 5w-50. We idled the engine (hopefully) enough (30 minutes) to pick up all the swarf, bits of rag etc and find any leaks to drain it. New filter, cooler (long story) going on now. No leaks in "my" plumbing.

That said, with the first fill, I put 1 - 2 qts in the pan to give the scavenge side something to work with and put about 1 1/2 gals in the tank. This read about 2/3rds full on the sight level (2 gallon tank, 6 inches diameter, 20 inches tall). This was with lines and cooler empty. After priming the pump with a pre-luber, cranking the car w/o plugs to build pressure/fill the lines and cooler, and starting the car, the tank level fell to about 1/3. I added another gallon. It idled fine at this level. So, 3 gallons (12 qts) in the system. My guess is somewhere around 11 qts is ideal.

On the drain back into the sump, two points. First, the 308 motor in "ordinary usage" has quite a bit of oil circulating (2 qts?). When left to sit, this does drain to the sump. I think I pulled 2 qts from the drain plug after a week. Given the sump is (5 inches or so) below the level of the bottom of tank, there will be some drainage from the tank but it does have to drain through the pressure side and, interestingly (at least to me!) the external pump can maintain a head of pressure (not much, but enough to move the Veglia gauge from the zero mark) after several days so I do think there's only a little seepage this way.

I realize, and apologise to the original poster, that I have totally hi-jacked his thread. I do appreciate the inputs.

Philip

 

I havnt seen any further posts from Jamie. I hope he didnt get upset with all the references to reading the manual. I too agree everyone should read it, but in this case, I felt he had read it, but was concerned with how dry the stick was. even if the oil had ran off during the night, the stick should have still been wet, with something on it. And if I had a dry stick in a mega buck engine, I sure wouldnt care to start it and wait to see if I had oil pressure. To bad there isnt a better tell tale on the dry sump cars. Maybe a good reason to have a sump stick as well?

 

No the tank is so tall on a 360 when the car sits for a while it will drain back and the stick will be dry. If the oil was hot when the motor is shut down it happens fast.

A sump stick would be a very bad idea. People have enough confusion how to properly use one and you want to add another?

And as I said if it had oil pressure when it got turned off and there is not a pool of oil on the floor it must still have enough oil to run or or am I missing something?

That is just life with a dry sump and is something that needs getting used to. Just like switching to a stick shift, you press on the clutch pedal when starting. It's not that hard to do or learn.

Driving a car is a serious responsibility, none of us is exempt and reading the manual and knowing how to operate it is part of the deal.