So i changed my oil the other day. I drained everything, filled it up with 5 quarts, and had issues with the filter. Finally changed the filter, and lost about 1/2 a quart of oil. So i should be somewhere between 4 - 5 quarts of oil.

I checked the dipstick to see how much more i need to put in, and it reads that the car is completely full.

I have an upgraded oil pan (the greddy pan for turbo'd 8s) - which is bigger than the stock pan. I was suprised it read that was full.

I'm thinking either..
A - There was some old oil that didnt completely drain.
B - The dipstick isnt reading correctly with the different oil pan.
C - Something else

Thoughts?

-hS

 

Quart in each oil cooler

 

did you start the car after replacing the filter but before checking the oil? if not, there would be no oil in the filter, so it would still seen as if the motor was full

 

You say you had "issues" and lost a half quart....

- was the filter loose, and it sprayed out?
- did it just leak a lot when you changed the filter?

I'm not getting how you figure you were down that much.

S

 

what? wouldnt that make it read lower?
I drove around before checking the dipstik, then checked the oil the next morning.
well - make a long story short, i had to take it in to have the filter changed after i drained the oil and refilled it.
the guy at the shop said about half a quart came out when they removed the filter. Its possible that not that much really was lost.

New Problem
The cars burning oil. Light Blue smoke coming out the pipes.

this is getting annoying.

-hS

 

As stated previously, the oil cooler(s) and lines retain several qts of oil when the engine sump is drained. For the "high-power" engine for example, the dry capacity of the engine and coolers is 7.1 qts. So when you drain the sump and oil filter you will get, at most, about 4.5 qts of old oil out. More likely it will be more like 4 qts. You probably just put in 5 qts without checking the oil level as you added the oil and it was, therefore, overfilled a little. When the "1/2" qt was drained out, it likely brought the level to near the top mark.

It's a good idea to add the last qt at refill a little at a time, checking the level periodically until the level reaches the top mark. Attached is the data on oil capacity from the FSM.

 

hmm that sounds pretty good. i guess i'll be ok.

 

Big O,
If your new oilpan has a deeper sump, then your dipstick is not accurate since it's the same length. That is, if you've got a deeper oil pan, the extra oil is spreading at the bottom and not neccessarily rising up higher to mark the dipstick. I've read some posts of guys draining the oil coolers, but I'm not too keen on how turbo 8s are set up...