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Hey guys,

I'm not sure if this problem is related to when I was racing last week... anyways I drove 60 miles last night and when I got home (it was dark) but I noticed a bunch of oil on my back bumper and little hatch window...

this morning I go outside to check it out and the oil wasn't blowing out of the exhaust, it was leaking from my oil pan apparently and spraying along the bottom of the right side of the car!!

From what I can tell, it looks like seal around half of the oil pan has failed... I am wondering what would cause this to happen? Is it the high miles (120k on the ze now), possibly a bad PCV valve and high pressure had no where to go, or because I was racing and this is what happens when you race?!

has anyone replaced their oilpan seal? I checked the online manual and it looks like it's just a bunch of bolts... I don't think I will have to remove my header piping... any advice is appreciated!!!

Here's some pics...

I would say it's definitely crankcase pressure related. The cause is hard to tell. Change the PCV valve anyway cuz it's cheap. Did it burn any oil up to this point? "Blow-by" can cause this. I've seen it on intake manifold gaskets. You can get a gauge with an adapter for your oil filler cap to test the pressure in the case. I don't know if the manual has a spec for that but a Mazda mechanic might be able to tell you. The PCV valve should not let it rise much above atmospheric pressure.

I just talked with Dana and we are pretty sure it is not PCV related since I just bought a new PCV grommet/valve last weekend... and there is no oil spewing out of my dipstick which would happen if the PCV failed...

I checked my mazda mechanics manual and I didn't notice anything for troubleshooting the oil pan... it just shows how to replace it...

Replacing it is easy. There is a gasket they make for the engines, but the oilpan doesn't really have a place for it. I still have a cork gasket if you want it, but I just used some black RTV sealant all the way around and bolted it up nice and it worked fine. The seal can also go from temperature, not just pressure. How hot was it when you were racing? If the seal was on its way out, pushing an engine hard will heat up the oil, which will increase the pressure since it's hot and will find the weak spots in the gasket.

That's if nothing else caused it to go. My g/f's civic oilpan gasket went and hers only has 120,000miles and she doesn't drive it hard or anything.

yes it could have been on it's way out... on saturday when we were racing it was close to 110 degrees and I was driving hard!

I agree, I think I will just scrape off all the old gasket/sealant and replace with high temp RTV....

thanks guys I was really freaking out since I thought it was something much more major... I still feel like a n00b when it comes to engine stuff

Welcome to the world of racing.

This is what happens when you race!

LOL

Ya you should be able to just lower the pan a little, clean the surfaces good and use high temp silicone. Place a bead around your pan, let the pan sit until the silicone sets a little before doing a final torque. My question was is possible you over filled your engine oil? Finally as far a heat goes I used a couple of extra exhaust flanges between the header and the crossover section and spaced my crossover down a little from the pan.

Would those extra gaskets make it easy for a leak to start?I noticed my cheap ebay downpipe is also hitting the oilpan. The mechanic suggested taing a torch to it and trying to bend the metal so it angled down more. I don't have the equip to do this, nor would I trust myself. Suggestions?

so I took off the oilpan saturday and scraped off all the old gasket and cleaned everything up... I put a new bead of high temp RTV and put the oil pan back on.

I was driving around monday and I noticed I was leaking mad oil again (lost 2 quarts in 30 miles)... Only this time it was coming from the cylinder head plug (cam seal)... so I've ordered new ones from Mazda and hopefully once those arrive and I install them, that will fix the problem.

just in time for the front and rear seals to go.....grr I hate seals.

ordered 2 different sets from mazda and neither were the right ones... sigh

so mazda does not sell the part I need which is kind of suprising to me

I've been searching on rockauto but I can't find the part either! what the crap?!

I'm going to go home and take a pic of the part I need and hopefully someone knows where I can buy it!

I feel like such a n00b right now

here's the pics of the part I need... there's some numbers on the cap:

on the top: EZ2996A
on the side: 37
on the bottom: NOK

pretty sure the cam caps I got were rubber coated metal discs, look quite different to those. I got them with a head gasket set, surprised they're hard to get! If all else fails I might have spares, but the old atlantic in the way thing may slow things down

What about the ones on the millenia motor?

Edit: Did you order them under those part numbers and the wrong parts came in?

no I ordered them from the diagram cross section computer diagram at mazda... and they were different internal parts that I ordered... I was stupid and didn't bring the actual part inside with the number therefore I failed in ordering

mazda does not sell this part individually