The Oil Pan Protection

[PatrykBindacz]

Hi everybody ! My name is Patrik, I am AGH Racing's member from Krakow. We have a question, caused by inconvienence and misunderstanding..

Our oil pan is located under the engine (Honda CBR 600 cc). We decided to mount skid plate. Could somebody describe the thickness which is required? And material. Thank you !
Best regards,
Patryk Bindacz

[Drew Price]

Patryk,

My rallycross car has a factory rally skid plate that is 0.25" thick aluminum, but for an FSAE car that's a lot of weight. Probably something like 0.125" thick UHMW / Nylon / Polypropylene sheet should be plenty, since FSAE cars generally operate on mostly smooth paved surfaces. Just make sure that if the skid plate does hit something hard it can't come up and still break the oil pan.

If it were me, I'd probably just glue a sheet of plastic the size of the oil pan right to the pan, so that it has a "skid" surface to protect it, like motorcyclists have on their knees for circuit racing.

Or make something else in your frame the lowest point so that the engine can't tough the ground if the suspension bottoms out. Maybe make the jacking point bar low enough that it hits the ground first?

There are lots of different solutions.

[PatrykBindacz]

Hey Drew,

thanks for your help. We are going to use a small and not so thick tubing under the oil pan.

Have a nice day,
Patryk Bindacz