the core on mine has the cutout for the knock sensor on only one side. how have others handled this? (my stock pan has the relief on both sides, so it can come on and off without having to remove either sensor.) did earlier C4s have only one sensor?

i'm pretty sure they didn't send me an f-body pan by mistake, since it looks exactly like the vette 240T in pics i've seen.

also, the rod bolts on my 396 actually hit the side of the pan right below the rail. what a pain having to hammer it out for clearance. i asked canton about this before ordering, since it says on their website that they can accomodate strokers, but they said that the dimension in question can't be fixed. i know others here have used this pan with 396s, did you just hammer?

thanks.

-michael

 

I just also ordered this same Canton pan from racenet. My 1990 has only one knock sensor on the passenger side, from the factory, where I saw it being built. I am assuming with the Canton pan which is not here yet, I will have to remove the flat panel just below the crank, due to the curved crank scrapper I see in the pics. Thanks be to God that I went with just a 30 overbore, and will not have these strange things like rod bolt clearances, notching the block almost into the water jacket, worry about hitting the cam,etc. I wanted a stroker, but my machinist talked me out of it. Interested to hear the out come of this particular story. Keep us informed.

 

Not sure what you mean by knock sensor. I've never known the knock sensor to be in the oil pan. Later model C4's had oil level sensors and what not. I had to plug the holes on my canton pan and don't remeber there being any hole small enough for the 1/4 NPT that the knock sensor is.

You may have to trim the pan some with that 396 because the crank sweep is larger. You also should have had to clearence the block area where the oil pan mounts. You may have to clearence the pan inthe same manner.

 

correct, plus you will have to remove at least one of the studs that hold that windage tray in place. i think there are some postings in the archives on how to handle that on a stock engine.

-michael

 

the knock sensor hangs below and very close to the pan rail, so that it actually interferes with the oil pan. GM put reliefs into the stamping. the canton is missing that on one side (apparently because they used a core from the early C4 which only had one sensor). meaning, the driver's side knock sensor would have to be removed in order to install the pan.

i'm thinking a die grinder will fix it.

yes, i'm nervous about how much work it will take to make this pan fit. i'm starting on it this week...

-michael

 

I have the 240T pan. As you observed, it's only clearanced for the passenger side knock sensor. You'll need to take a dremel and clearance the driver's side. If you don't the sensor will interfere with the pan rail.

 

The only fitment issue I had was that I had to masage the scraper down just a hair to clear the crank. The pan rails were fine. This is with a Callies crank and Lunatti rods. Also I had no problems with my 2 Knock sensors.

 

I just ordered mine a couple of days ago as well, and am in the process of a 383. CorvetteZ51Racer will be doing the install, so I will definitely be keeping an eye on this thread. :lurk:

Mike

 

so where the heck the knock sensors on LT1 cars then? my oil pan comes no where close to the one, or the one on the other side. I have two so I can swap back and forth between 165, and 730 ECM

 

i didn't think the sbc and LTx blocks would be different in that respect. the knock sensors thread into an NPT thread on the sides of the block, close to the pan rail, roughly centered front to back. the sensor itself hangs ~ 1/3 of its volume below the pan rail.

i just finished swapping the main studs, ran out of time to do more...

-michael

 

You will need to grind clearance on the driver side oil pan bolt flange to clear the knock sensor, I'll go out & shoot a couple pics & attach...




BTW, I reused the factory oil pan stiffening rail strips w/o problem.

 

Michael, what kind of rods are you using? I'm got a 3.875 Crower No Twist and Eagle 6.0" rods in a Motown block. Everything fits without any mods to the pan other than grinding off an offending bolt holding the scraper to the pan. Newer designs of the 15-240 have the scraper welded to the side.

 

thanks much for the input, everyone.

this really puzzles me, then. i too am using eagle 6" rods, 3.875" stroke. they're 2.100" journal rods, though, are yours smaller?

i had to hammer the stock pan a lot to clear the sides also. but, i didn't have to touch the bottom of the pan. i had put together some strokers at mti years ago and those cleared the sides, but hit the bottom. (different rods on those.)

i vaguely remember my builder saying eagle had repositioned the rod bolts recently. maybe i have new style vs yours being old style?

wait, i just caught the motown block part. same pan, though, right? how is that block different? maybe it has a pan rail slightly lower than stock?

-michael

 

The Motown block has the pan rails in the stock location. I originally had built the motor with a stock 400 block back in 96. But that motor did not require any pan denting either. If Eagle has changed its rod bolt location, that could be the culprit. By the way are you using the ESP rods or the I beam style?

 

I just bought a 3.750" Callies Racemaster crank and Oliver 6.0" rods... I wonder if I will have any issues with this setup and Canton's pan. John is creative enough where he should be able to get it all to fit. The kid's got a little talent. :D

Mike

 

Hmmm. I installed my pan and then installed the sensors. The driver's side sensor interfered with the pan rail. Naturally I didn't discover this right away and got to mod the pan rail with the engine together. Sounds like it just depends on what end of the tolerance stack up the engine resides.

 

:confused: :confused: I thought the knock sensor on the LT1 cars where in the same place, but it's just that with my canton pn there have been no issues with the knock sensors getting close.

 

i finished the intall this evening.

the driver's side knock sensor was really close to clearing as is. the real problem turned out to be fitting the pan on around the pickup tube. it required me to angle the pan in such a way that it interfered with the sensor. so, i had to do this:



i had much less problems clearing the sides of the pan, but i figured out why. with the stock pan i had used a gm pan gasket. this time i had a felpro, and it is about twice the thickness. here's how much i had to hammer the stock pan, not just in this location but in 8 spots:



with the felpro i only had to just barely tap down the edge of the scraper, hammer 2 spots on the sides, and then trim the gasket in a couple of places where the rod bolts hit it. here's a pic of the rail on the block so you can see how much it was clearanced for the stroke, and you can also see the 3 new studs i installed to replace the long windage tray studs:

http://home.houston.rr.com/msr/bottom.jpg

i also discovered the dispstick tube didn't seat all the way because it was hitting one of my aftermarket main caps. i cut it down and now it seats. it seems to be reading properly, since 6 quarts (+1 in the filter - it's a big filter) in the pan reads exactly one quart low on the dipstick. i think canton says the pan is full with 7qts, plus however much your filter and engine holds?

i can't think of anything else that might help the next person right now, if i remember i'll add more later.

thanks.

edit: messed up the images

-michael


[Modified by MSR, 10:57 PM 3/4/2004]

 

anyone of you guys do an oil cooler?
how bout you Jim? you do your's yet???

I have not done anything yet but buy the parts...

 

I run a cooler in mine along with the Accusump. I just ordered a Ron Davis radiator. If I didn't have the cooler, I would have spent the extra $ on the version that incorporates the engine oil cooler.