As I have been running my car on the road course a little this year, I have made improvements along the way. One big improvement was Dr Diff 15/16" master and rear disc brakes to complement 13" front "Cobra Style" brakes. Now the brakes really bite and hold. Next was a mechanical OP gauge + idiot light. The rebuilt OE gauge works but is very slooow. It is always happy on high end of the scale running and drops to the middle at sustained hot idle.

The engine is a 496B with re-pop hemi pan, matching 3/8" pickup and MP windage tray. Manual transmission.

Now with the sensitive gauge and good brakes I see oil pressure drop on heavy braking. In normal operation it runs 65 psi or a little better hot and idles around 25-30 hot... as good or even a bit better vs the fresh engine with mechanical gauge.

When I warm the brakes a little then get on them hard, OP drops to a "bouncy" 20 PSI. The OE spec idiot light (7 psi?) does not come on. Oil pressure comes right back after I let off the brakes.

How worried should I be about the OP drop on braking? What are the fixes? Comments welcome.

Fully baffled road race oil pan.

Maybe with a swinging pickup.

I would be concerned enough to resolve the issue. Above suggestions plus a 3 qt accusump.

I usually wait to brake until I see god, you'll miss him if you are constantly watching your oil pressure.

THIS

That road race pan looks really nice... I have heard its a very tight fit though... anybody running one? Also wonder if the road race pan alone is enough or also need the Accusump?

To have both NEVER hurts.

it can be a tight fit, the pan may or may not hit the steering centerlink on full lock. YMMV

You may be thinking of my pic of an small block in a 73-76 a-body K-frame.

The big block road race in a b or e body has alot more room than a small block in a A-body.

I believe you can install that pan without taking motor out.

I had an pro instructor drive my car hard with the stock pan and sucked the pan dry. We had to come in on the second lap. With the new Mildon pan, same pro driver same track we had no issues. SB road race pan has same sump as BB pan just a little smaller for clearance in spots.

Sounds like I have a winter project... I'll do the pan first and go from there.

I used that pan in A-body.

Hasn't the small block pan been discontinued since last year?

Edit: Nevermind, it's still on their website. Sure is a pricey unit.

http://www.milodon.com/oil-pans/road-race-oil-pans.asp

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/mil-31595/overview/make/dodge

Ask Hotchkis about the custom aluminum Moroso pan up in the rafters of the shop they had made for the Yellow Challenger. Leaked and not as many gates and smaller than the Milodon ones.

I think the confusion on the road race oil pan centers around the withdrawal of the DIY road race oil pan kit, which has been discussed here and this only makes sense I suspect if the manufacturers decided they could earn a greater profit selling complete pans, instead of the kit a customer could customize for their own particular set-up.

Maybe If those kit buyers would had understood they were buying something they would have to fabricate themselves and take responsibility for themselves. Shame a few could ruin it for the whole.

I have a old Moroso Kit. It's a little bit of a head start. But about every piece would have had to be cut down for fitting into my stock framed situation. Many parts rebent or notches cut. The pieces in the kit are not real brain surgery. It's better suited for a fab clip circle track car with lots of room. And that is what it's was designed for.

A person with the competent skill set and tools to build the kit into a custom pan ALSO has about the same skill set and tool to built the pan from scratch. It's like making a subframe connector "KIT" with two straight tubes and a hacksaw blade.

But nowadays everyone wants to be empowered whether they deserve it or not. Then they demand their hand held, be coddled, and blame someone else for their own mistakes.

If you spend a hour instructing someone how to DIY over the phone, a manufacturer could have just made it themselves in the same amount of time. And at least in that case they would have know the person building is remotely qualified to do so.

Good idea, do the pan first and see if that solves it. If not, you can always add the accusump which will solve it but is expensive and heavy and somewhat complicated.

By the way, when you install the road race pan go ahead and add an oil temp sending unit at the same time. Once you start watching oil temp you'll learn a bunch.

I'm planning to get a SB Miloden road race pan (engine out of car now, rebuilding time... past stock welded/baffled pan has served well), but one thing that puzzles me is the very rear-most area ... pictures show it squared off, as though it would be holding a small collection of oil without drainage to the bottom sump. It looks as though the pan is cut by Miloden and raised/dammed just in front of that rear area, completely different than a stock pan. Maybe the BB pan is the same. Does anyone know the reason for the rear area being changed? I've never actually seen one of these pans (SB or BB).

The back wall of the sump keeps oil from spilling over out of the sump. The taller that back wall, the better at keeping oil in the sump area.

Well on a small block the rear floor height is dictated by the height of the oil pump not the rotating assembly like on most motors. Without the oil pump, the rear floor on a small block could be 1/2" or so closer to the crank. Remember some people rubbing holes in pans with thicker HV oil pumps? It happened to me once. The lower the rear floor of the oil pan, the shorter the back wall of the sump is and more oil spilling out of the sump pickup.

So what Milodon does with their small block Lo-Pro and Road Race pans is to make them think they are a deeper sump while achieving better ground clearance.

I know it seems like oil will be trapped in the back. But it's very shallow and hot oil comes down the block to fill that area and with movement of the car oil spills out and is refilled.

Also, this is a high performance part. Not grandma's Buick or a new car with 5,000 miles oil change intervals that people still forget to do. Cars with this type of pan don't/shouldn't wait for their oil to be black to change it. It gets changed every race, every few races, every year of occasional fun car driving, or some much shorter than average interval. And that would happen whether you had this pan or not.

This is in a 71 E-body Hemi clone with the Milodon 31580 Pro Touring/Road Race pan. From underneath will be the same as your big block, but headers will be different.

I have the small block road race pan in my car and was also concerned a bit with the oil being trapped in the back of the pan. My concern was more that when changing the oil that the better part of a quart (or liter where I live) of dirty oil would be stay in the pan when draining out the oil. If I wasn't in a bit of a rush when I installed the pan I would have welded in a bung plug in the back area to drain out this oil, will do it over the winter. Another option would be to weld in a 1/2" tube or two on the side of the pan to connect the two sumps. The pan does work well, I have run a few events with it this year and have never seen the gauge bounce.