What sort of application requires putting a 5 gallon oil pan on a small block Chevy? What is the benefit of having that much oil?
What sort of application requires putting a 5 gallon oil pan on a small block Chevy? What is the benefit of having that much oil?
Marine? Over compensating?
Lots of thermal mass in the system.
More surprising than the volume is the complete lack of baffles.
With that kind of volume and zero baffling, any moderate sustained g load on the vehicle would slosh oil into the rotating assembly and the bottom of the cylinders.
Generator or some other stationary application?
In reply to Crackers :
Generator?
Thinking about it, I'd be more inclined to think it's intended for some sort of large slow moving aquatic vessel.
Volume would help increase service intervals, and g-load would be minimal.
SBC's seem like a poor choice for generator duties. Plus, in a stationary land based application, there would be no need for a fancy aluminum pan, let alone that kind of volume.
Dump truck? We've got a C65 with a 350 SBC where this might barely make sense.
The thing with that, to me, is that the oil will "age out" before it "wears out" due to actual use with anything close to that much volume. I would rather invest in a good oil cooler setup with a thermostat than having this much oil in the pan.
There were plenty of sbc’s used in agricultural and industrial applications from generators to combines and most stuff in between. I’d gather it’s from an industrial engine
Just because it holds five gallons doesn't mean you have to use five gallons. Running four gallons "low" would keep the oil FAR away from the crank...
Maybe it's for one of those corvettes with a turbo for every cylinder? That much plumbing could hold a lot of oil.
Less oil changes. Lol
just out of curiosity, do any chevy diesels use the same oilpan as the SBC?
A big standby generator, a pump of some sort, or something else that needs to run under heavy load for days at a time makes the most sense to me. Longer service interval and maintaining oil level (note the two included sight glasses) becomes less critical when you have gallons to burn/leak though before the pickup is uncovered.
In reply to Homework :
Jaguar always had really big oil pans. 23-24 quarts in XK120’s through The early 60’s
The D Types used a dry sump of 3 gallons and at least another 4-5 quarts in the lines cooler filter and pan.
My Black Jack had A 22 quart pan a 5 gallon dry sump tank and a big oil cooler with twin HP1 filters and probably 7-8 quarts in the lines
There are thousands of small block Chev running natural gas compressors all over Western Canada. Maybe the pan is for something like that.
Trackmouse said:Less oil changes. Lol
There's some interesting reading out there about pump engines. Used to be practice (maybe still is?) to get the largest automotive engine you could find in the junkyard and run it up to the pump. I'd like to say irrigation pump but could be petroleum. Anyway, the engines would run at a high idle for more or less forever. Since it was a pain in the ass to get things pumping again if you shut it down, they would change the oil with the engine running. Drain the oil, swap the filter real quick, add oil. Obviously things like spark plugs were a permanent installation 
Knurled. said:engine running. Drain the oil, swap the filter real quick, add oil. Obviously things like spark plugs were a permanent installation
I wonder if it would be possible to change plugs one at a time on a running engine...I imagine getting them threaded in, and not blowing out the first few threads, would be the hard part. And of course high-temp gloves would be needed to handle the old one.
Streetwiseguy said:There are thousands of small block Chev running natural gas compressors all over Western Canada. Maybe the pan is for something like that.
I surveyed a facility in Texas that has a SBC generator running on NG, although I didn't notice if the oil pan was larger than normal.
We used to run irrigation pivot pumps with SBCs mounted to trailers and they had multiple gallon oil pans. They also had automatic shutdowns for low pressure or extremely low level, high temps, low coolant expansion tank level, overspeed, vibration/knocking and the like. Basically we would fire one up, make sure it came up to temp fine, and then check on it every couple of days when we topped off the fuel tank.
A lot of irrigation pumps and such are run with car engines, as mentioned above. There are stories of people cruising farmland and stealing the Chrysler Hemi engines that were in use in the 60's.
Here's an SBC from Don Hardy. Some of you old guys may remember the name from his racing days.
In reply to slantvaliant :
For a number of years I lived in SW Ontario, a tobacco farming area. There were lots of Chrysler Hemi industrial engines powering irrigation pumps. Never looked closely at one to notice the oil pan, but those things ran 24 hours a day, for days at a time late in the growing season.
Ian F said:Streetwiseguy said:There are thousands of small block Chev running natural gas compressors all over Western Canada. Maybe the pan is for something like that.
I surveyed a facility in Texas that has a SBC generator running on NG, although I didn't notice if the oil pan was larger than normal.
Yeah, the ones I have seen have stock pans too. Must be something along those lines, though.
The blue thing looks like a sight level gauge...
Me thinks there may be other uses of the oil looking at the pipe fitting and the need for the filter sandwich.
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