Oil Pan

During our Winter Break 2000 trip I stopped by Kennedy Engineered Products.
I had the spare Subaru oil pan with me that I had picked up in Washington State and Hobert said they
would modify it to the new, low profile, pan if I wanted to wait around.

By four o'clock I was on the road with the new pan on board. I would wait to install it after our trip.

I currently have 28,520 miles on my subie conversion and have driven a lot of backroads being careful to not snag the Subaru pan on a rock or high spot in the middle of the trail. So far, so good, but now is the time for more clearance!

The KEP pan mounted up just fine. I was able to install all the bolts, starting them with my fingers, all except one. Don't tell Hobert but I left that one out!! It is the one located at the rear of the pan between those two plug fittings that stick down from the Subaru engine. I put a nice bead of gasket goop on the pan before I installed it and once I had all the bolts started (except one) I just snugged them up a bit, broke for lunch and let the goop firm up a bit. After lunch I tightened them the rest of the way. The oil pan is stiff enough and flat enough that I figured I could get away with one missing bolt, after all, there are fourteen bolts!

As for the dip stick. I had to cut the supporting bracket off the dip stick (the bracket that holds the dip stick, via a 10 mm bolt, to the block) in order to get it out (down) from between the engine and timing belt cover. No matter how I held my lips or what foul words I said I could not get that dip stick out of there without cutting the bracket off. Anyway, once I had it out I just plugged the dip stick back into the new location on the Kennedy oil pan with it now coming up between the timing belt cover and the KEP heat shield. I made a bracket to hold the dip stick in place and bolted it to the tin cover that covers the alternator belt using the 10 mm bolt at the right end of the cover. I did not try bending the dip stick it so it would aim at the license plate door but instead left it au natural. You see, I like to take off the engine cover every now and then and admire my Subaru engine!!

Hobert Kennedy using a jig to drill the dip stick hole in my new oil pan during our winter break trip.	Here is my stock Subaru pan. I have pulled the drain plug to drain the oil and get ready for the Kennedy pan. I swapped out the oil filter too.
Above, on the left, is my Subaru pan and oil pick-up tube. Above, on the right, is the Kennedy pan and shortened pick-up tube. The image to the right is another view. Note the baffel with slots and the extended pan area to keep total oil capacity the same.
Here is the stock oil pick-up tube.	Here, the shortened pick-up tube is installed.
The Kennedy pan is in place. You can see the dip stick entering the pan just above the oil drain plug which is now located at the rear of the oil pan.	The Kennedy oil pan bottom is about one half inch higher than the exhaust header now. Perfect!!

The image on the left is the stock Subaru oil pan on Ed's 1985 Weekender.
The image on the right is the KEP oil pan on my 1984 Westy camper.

For a reference point check the oil pans bottoms in relation to the engine support member just ahead of the oil pan.