Has anyone run into this before? Mid 90s VD

[Rick Kirchner]

Earlier this year I had an engine built out of mostly new parts, including a different block and pan. Put the car together, ran it, had an oil leak at the secondary shaft, removed the engine, fixed the leak, and re-assembled.

My car has a split front motor mount to make it easier to pull the engine (first pic). During assembly, the engine is usually "adjusted" with a crane, crowbar, spacer under the pan, etc - such that the kerf caused by cutting the mount is the same on the bottom as the top. Usually not a big deal and usually not much adjustment is needed. No issue when I installed this motor the first time.

But last week I couldn't get things to line up perfectly at the front. The right mount seems to be a bit offset to the rear, and the kerfs on both sides aren't parallel.

However, at the back of the engine it is bolted in as usual to the bellhousing and frame. Everything there is tight and nothing gave me even the slightest pause as it went together. However, the shim/wedge I place under the pan during assembly was much looser than normal, and then I found this (second pic).

My other pan clears the frame by probably a half-inch. I never gave any thought to the pans being different. I suspect this is the cause of my issues, and right now I don't know if this is going to be a big deal or not. Figured I'd just run the thing and see what happens.

[CGOffroad]

I had to deal with this when using the PACE pans to fit in Van Diemens. Except the problem of clearance with them was on the rear of oil pan. I would just lob off the rear of sump to relieve the interference with cars frame work in engine bay. On one of the PACE pans it had been set up to scavenge out of the left side of pan. That didn't work with pump mounting and hose routing. So, those ports had to be welded shut and new ports made in the right side of pan. The allowed hoses to run around the front of motor to pump

[Rick Kirchner]

I had an aluminum pan, looked at the effort required to modify it, and sold it.

[Purple Frog]

IMHO Dremel for clearance. Otherwise the vibration of that 4-banger could cause a problem in that area. YMMV

[DaveW]

IMHO Dremel for clearance. Otherwise the vibration of that 4-banger could cause a problem in that area. YMMV

Agreed. Vibration and repeated dynamic tensile stress on the bottom of that protrusion could cause a fatigue crack or worse.

[Rick Kirchner]

Well if the motor has to come out again I'll be cutting an angle off the back of the pan and filling it with a wad of braze or mig, or getting the old pan back from the builder that has it with the pieces of my other engine. Race this weekend, and only five weeks between this event and the Laguna F2000 race in late June. I believe in the past I've seen a couple pictures of VDs with that flat piece cut and I always wondered why. Never occurred to me that there would be multiple manufacturers of that pan, or that one of them would miss that dimension.