Gary:
I follow your thoughts.  I would also expect that the diameter of the return
hose would affect how quickly the oil level equilibrium is reached, i.e. a
small diameter hose may cause a back-up if the volume of oil is too great.
 What size (diameter/length) hose are you using?

Any chance you could post or send me some pictures of your set-up?

Thanks,
Maynard

On Saturday, July 28, 2001 12:01 AM, Gary Shea [SMTP:shea@gtsdesign.com] wrote:
> I have changed my mind several times about whether the oil needs to
> return above the oil level in the pan.  At the moment, my thinking
> runs something like this: if you put water in a tube, and hold up the
> two ends of the tube, the water is at the same height.  So if you run
> the oil return from the turbo straight into the pan below the oil
> level, the oil level in the tube will be at the same level as that in
> the pan, and it'll never get any higher.  On the other hand, if you do
> what I did and try to avoid going into the pan under the oil level,
> you actually get a worse situation:  the oil level in the hose from
> the turbo to the pan now will be _higher_ than the oil level in the
> pan if there're any dips in the hose.  It has to be higher because,
> after all, the outlet of the tube is higher.  As long as the oil level
> in the hose is below the level of the turbo bearings, no problem...
> I'm not very happy with the way I did it, but will probably leave it
> that way for a while.  It is at least done ;)
>
>       Gary

> Maynard Southard (echomhs@gis.net) wrote:
> > Bryan:
> > The taller block may help provide a little more slope, but I am troubled by
> > tapping into the oil pan.  While I had the oil pan off, I set it flat on
> > the
> > table and started adding water to see when it started to overflow the
> > lowest
> > edge (the one nearest the manifold side of the block.  At about 2.5 quarts
> > water started spilling out.  That means that the oil level resides above
> > that
> > edge of the pan at idle.  Draining oil from the turbo to this point would
> > seem
> > to bring the oil in below the oil level.  (I believe Mike Snow reported
> > different results in a similar test.  I can't explain our differences,
> > unless
> > we have different oil pans.)
> >
> > Is there a way to run the drain line over to the opposite side of the block
> > to
> > drain into the "top" of the oil pan?  Does anyone who has done this have
> > pictures they can send me or post to the web?
> >
> > Maynard
>