Raising an engine

[WHOSHAUNQ]

Just get yourself a skid plate and scrape the fuck out of it everywhere like I do

My skid plate was ~1" lower than this at final height.

it a bad bump with this, your pan is gonna end up smacking the skid plate and cracking. and that looks pretty thin. hasn't bent yet?

[Kielan]

Skid plates don't do shit, sorry, but it's true, all they do is reduce your clearance and smash into your pan on things that wouldn't have necessarily hit in the first place.

Skid plates are meant for legit offroad use on things that are in softer earth, and can be moved, not for pavement.

[jacbo]

Keep in mind, on a lot of the old cars you guys are bombin', the rubber motor mounts might be so sagged that adding 1/2" of washers will simply raise the engine back to factory height. Shit when I got my '86 244 the oil filter was sitting on subframe.

+1 for raising the trans as well. In any case, the cheap insurance of doing all mount points warrants the work.

[WHOSHAUNQ]

Skid plates don't do shit, sorry, but it's true, all they do is reduce your clearance and smash into your pan on things that wouldn't have necessarily hit in the first place.

Skid plates are meant for legit offroad use on things that are in softer earth, and can be moved, not for pavement.

this, but my skid plate does work. I raised the motor and trans about half an inch, and I have poly mounts. skid plate works like a charm since its 5/16 thick steel. I jack my car up by the skid plate. and it doesn't bend.

[motocaddy]

Skid plates don't do shit, sorry, but it's true, all they do is reduce your clearance and smash into your pan on things that wouldn't have necessarily hit in the first place.

Skid plates are meant for legit offroad use on things that are in softer earth, and can be moved, not for pavement.

Have you ever had a skid plate on a low car? If designed properly, they can be very beneficial. The one on my mk2 jetta was wide and tucked up tight, so I was able to skid over obtacles and entrances rather than constantly scrape open my pan.

[zr71]

New solution.
dry sump

#becuzracecar

[Kielan]

Have you ever had a skid plate on a low car? If designed properly, they can be very beneficial. The one on my mk2 jetta was wide and tucked up tight, so I was able to skid over obtacles and entrances rather than constantly scrape open my pan.

For these purposes sure, that makes sense. But people who are like "ZOMG MY PAN IS 1/8" OFF THE GROUND SKIDPLATE MAKES IT SAFE!" Are going full re and just causing themselves more damage. You reduce ground clearance by putting one in there, and most people get flimsy shit ones to begin (sorry guys that Street sign isn't protecting shit), and then are put in places that are just going to cause more harm than good. If your pan is tucked up there, and the skid plate has enough distance to flex and bend, and not hit the pan, and can still be used without dramatically (yes 1/8th of an inch+ is a significant difference when you start getting seriously low), reducing clearance, then by all means go for it. Chances are you wouldn't have hit it begin with, but having the extra security never hurt anyone. Most of these problems of low pans are on old cars anyway, replace your motor mounts with some poly ones, raise the motor a touch while you're in there, if you can get the clearance you need for the skid plate, then chuck it on in. Otherwise, you're just going to destroy the plate, and the pan. Wasting even more money.

Ben I know you know all that, but most of that was directed toward people who think that their cool speed limit sign "skid plate" actually does something, especially when the pan is sitting on it.

[Anonymoose]

:/ throws away road sign...

[CHIF8008]

Skid plates don't do shit, sorry, but it's true, all they do is reduce your clearance and smash into your pan on things that wouldn't have necessarily hit in the first place.

Skid plates are meant for legit offroad use on things that are in softer earth, and can be moved, not for pavement.

This is complete bull crap. i smashed my skid plate today on a horrible transition doing about 75 on the freeway today. the impact was enough that i felt the car physically slow down as if i hit a wall. scary stuff. and guess what, my oil pan is fine and my plate lives on. legit steel plate mind you, not a ghey street sign

so you are saying rock crawling is not legit offroad?
If you did any type of offroading you would know that skids are VERY helpful when rock crawling. i had my gas tank skid save my butt a few times (don't know if you know this, but rocks are kinda just as hard as pavement, probably even harder) oh and big rocks don't usually move. you gotta go over them




*but i do agree that MOST people do not have legit ones and that they do end up screwing up their ground clearance.

[Kielan]

This is complete bull crap. i smashed my skid plate today on a horrible transition doing about 75 on the freeway today. the impact was enough that i felt the car physically slow down as if i hit a wall. scary stuff. and guess what, my oil pan is fine and my plate lives on. legit steel plate mind you, not a ghey street sign

so you are saying rock crawling is not legit offroad?
If you did any type of offroading you would know that skids are VERY helpful when rock crawling. i had my gas tank skid save my butt a few times (don't know if you know this, but rocks are kinda just as hard as pavement, probably even harder) oh and big rocks don't usually move. you gotta go over them




*but i do agree that MOST people do not have legit ones and that they do end up screwing up their ground clearance.

I said this in a different thread. IF you have set it up correctly, then yes it will work. 99% of retards on this site won't, they'll have a fuckin road sign or some retarded ass shit like that, that doesn't actually do shit, other than "look" cool because it gets all scraped up and they get to say how low they are and get mad scene points y0!

If you do it right, by all means, but if your pan is touching your skid plate, and there is no room for anything to flex, you're just going to break more shit faster, and look like a retard doing it.

Also rock crawling is definitely real offroading, and chances are if you have rock crawler you've set the car up somewhat properly to begin with, and would definitely know how to properly use a skid plate.

[CHIF8008]

agreed mate

seriously (for my real low brothers). i suggest raising the drive-train & investing in a proper plate.

i got my M20 pan in my e30 to sit above my subframe. my plate not only keeps the pan safe, but the sub frame, steering rack and my pointless sway bar.- didn't feel like getting any of those ripped into.

although my exhaust always it taking a beating... gonna invest in marine exhaust rubber hose. should allow for max low and a peace of mind that the only thing scraping is the seat mounts through the floor boards haha i think that would qualify as "Low Enough" for me

[CHIF8008]

Just to clear things up- the first picture is also wrong. You Do Not want a perfectly straight drive-shaft. The joints need a specific angle(also called a working angle) (1/2* if i remember) so that the needle bearings in the joints get used. If the drive shaft is perfectly straight (o-degree working angle) then the needle bearings inside the bearing cap are not revolving because there is no force, or difference in angles, to cause the rotation of the needle bearings.
If they do not rotate, they can exert a constant pressure in one place and damage the bearing journal.


But as the other examples show- an excessive angle is also bad. the greater the angle- the greater the change in speed( velocity). Because of these angles, the speed changes twice per revolution; alongside with the fact that the input side of the joint is spun at a constant speed- but when you increase the angle of the joint- the output speed changes.

sorry, but ima get a bit technical now:
so remember how i said that twice every revolution the speed changes? well this naturally will cause a vibration( which is why there is a joint on both ends). So, if these joints both have the same working angles- the acceleration and deceleration of the one joint is offset by the alternate deceleration and acceleration of the second joint.

so- because of this it is very important that both u-joints operate at about the same angle to prevent excessive drive-line vibrations. so... the angle of the joint by itself is important AND the angles of the opposing joints compared to each other are important.


Anddd to get even a bit more technical about why a vibration would occur from an excessive angle or the difference in the opposing angles. Remember how i said that the more the angle of the joint- the faster the output will be? Well the natural vibration form the angle changing speeds twice every revolution(accelerating and deceleration) now is overcoming the angle of the second joint- so now you feel the vibration. and that is also why the vibration will increase with intensity when you go faster- because the output is physically spinning(vibrating) faster.


Not trying the crap on your thread Adam, but i figure people should know why something is bad to do- opposed to them just knowing it is bad. so, with this new found knowledge go out with something new to think about. I have raised my M20 oil pan so that it sits above the front sub-frame- and this did change the front u-joint angle, but it was not enough of a change to cause a vibration because some joints have working angles from 1/2 -a degree to 3 degrees. but i did not need to raise up the pan very much to get it high- but other pans sit Very low and if you tried to raise it up that high the angle difference would be great enough to cause a huge vibration--- BUT you could fix that vibration by changing the front joint to a double cardan U-joint.(heavy modification that usually would be best to swap a different engine in.) Although a slight change in the front angle with a small vibration can be fixed by allowing the second joint to match the front working angles by shimming the differential.

cheers mates Just thought i would share some useful information with people that can actually use it.

[pattshreds]

ive been told hockey pucks get the task done.

[ecuastyle84]

ive been told hockey pucks get the task done.

Yes and no, from what I've read off another forum mentioning hockey pucks as an alternative:

"If you are going to use hockey pucks make sure you use a metal sleve in there. As a hockey player I can tell you when a puck gets hot it because very soft, thus why we put game pucks in a ice bucket before and during a game."

[ecuastyle84]

Just get yourself a skid plate and scrape the fuck out of it everywhere like I do

My skid plate was ~1" lower than this at final height.

These skid plates are not as strong as you think, at least not for my driving tho. I've bent and respaced this thing twice already.




Thinking about getting one of these bad boys instead