Dumbish Question: Actual Oil Capacity?

[rwiggins951]

Ok, I know this sounds remedial, but bear with me: I know the book says 6.7 quarts for an oil + filter change, but does this account for the amount of oil you may or may not drain from the coolers??

You might ask, why not use the dipstick er...dipstick? Well, because mine has been replaced and I am not 100% sure that the new collar and nut are in exactly the same spot as original. They are not a fixed length, but instead a pipe and compression fitting. This is a basic error to not be sure, but before you judge me, please note that Lotus never intended this part to be replaced with the engine in the car.

Why the big deal? Well, I am pretty sure I have been over filling it because my freshly rebuilt (for the second time) turbo charger (RH side) is smoking again after I topped off the oil and went for a few hundred miles of aggressive driving.

Before the second rebuild, the turbo would stop smoking if the oil was low, but I rebuilt it anyway.

I had added a quart based on my dipstick reading (bottom marker) and it read to the top marker (as expected) when cold. After the drive, the reading was nearly 1/4 inch above top marker. There was no fuel or water in the oil to account for this increase in level.

I drained the sump and thoroughly collected the oil from the filter (always cut them open for piece of mind, or warning signs). Tallied the total oil and it was almost exactly 7.0 US quarts. Cold.

Sounds a bit high, but the arse-high attitude of the car when I drained it makes me think my coolers are still full. So if the book figure includes oil for the coolers, then my 7.0 quarts + cooler oil is certainly enough to prevent proper draining of a turbo and probably a bit of oil frothing in the crank case.

If 6.7 does not include coolers, then the extra 0.3 of a quart does not sound like enough to explain the turbo smoke. Which would be highly unfortunate news.

Incidentally, I put 5 quarts in and the dipstick reads 1/8 inch above low. Cold. This is after letting the car idle for 20 minutes the prior day with no smoke whatsoever from the turbo.

I did drop the exhaust and clean out any residual oil in the pipe and turbine housing.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

[redshift]

Pretty sure the handbook says to check the oil level when warm/hot. The cold reading could be misleading.

[Günter]

as far as I know it there is 7.3 Liters to 7.5Liters within the system all in all (oil-cooler,pipes and engine basically..) -so on an ordinary oil-change you can only change around 6Liters to 6.5Liters or so with ease... .

As for the dipstick-tube: do you have the workshop-book available in any form ?! From memory (my engine rebuild..) there was an note on how to measure the tube 'free-lenghth' within the block/the olive

...have it - *mark the tube 103mm from the bottom edge -this must be coincidence with the top surface of the dipstic hole in the block*

hope you can 'undo' the olive-nut far enough to pull the tube out slightly to check that after all..

Edited June 4, 2010 by Günter

[rwiggins951]

as far as I know it there is 7.3 Liters to 7.5Liters within the system all in all (oil-cooler,pipes and engine basically..) -so on an ordinary oil-change you can only change around 6Liters to 6.5Liters or so with ease... .

As for the dipstick-tube: do you have the workshop-book available in any form ?! From memory (my engine rebuild..) there was an note on how to measure the tube 'free-lenghth' within the block/the olive

...have it - *mark the tube 103mm from the bottom edge -this must be coincidence with the top surface of the dipstic hole in the block*

hope you can 'undo' the olive-nut far enough to pull the tube out slightly to check that after all..

Somehow I missed that spec in the workshop manual. Thanks much for providing it! The turbo indeed stopped smoking with a quart less oil, but now I can ensure that the dipstick is providing a correct reading.

Regards,

Rod

[Günter]

this problem with incorect oil-level sounds like the same as on the F3000 Lotus V8 project racer made by *R&B*. It was like a 'dry sumped' conception as for the hight of the engine block to fit it in the Lola-chassis.

Man that car smoked a lot -but what a monster !!