Broken Oil Pickup Tubes...concern?
 

This seems like another situation where a handful of people on NASIOC have had this happen to them, so it turns into an epidemic... I was just wondering if anybody here has heard of these types of failures or seen any of them first hand or if it should be a concern at all.

Cliffnotes on the cause and issue are...apparently the brazing process for the oil pickup tube isn't a very good one, and in conjunction with thin metal and oil pump low frequency pulses (:~:) the tubes snap.

http://photos.killerbmotorsport.com/...6880.Large.jpg

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...ghlight=pickup

Obviously it is happening, but the question is how common is it. The internet is a big place and sometimes we can get a distorted impression of the severity/frequency of a problem. Also KillerB has a vested reason in making sure it seems as bad as possible (and I am *not* implying deceit or dishonesty on their part). I would like to know the approximate frequency of this issue. Is it closer 1:100 cars, 1:1000, 1:10,000? I really really doubt it is 1:10 cars because I have not heard of it happening to anybody on here. So maybe not even 1:100 based on that fact. Assuming it is 1:1000 cars that this happens to, are you ready to drop your pan, and change out the pickup (major PITA I think) to ward off a 0.1% chance of something bad happening? I don't think I am.

If I had the pan off or engine out for other reasons then maybe that would be the time.

it is something that happens, as Matt said. But mainly I've only heard of it happening when your running a higher volume of oil, or significantly increased power. The killerb pick-ups are extremely beefy, having put a couple on before, but its not something that I would lose any sleep over. Id get an oil pressure gauge, and keep an eye on it, and that should be a good monitoring system to know if something catastrophic happens or not.

If Cosworth sells their oil pan w/ a stock pickup that's just got an extension on it... I'm willing to bet it's not all that common of an issue. Cosworth would be selling a $250 upgrade for it if they had been seeing failures on their engines... and I haven't seen them doing that yet.

Seen 4 of them to date, all MY06 cars. 3 STI's and 1 WRX.

Working on #4 right now, complete carnage inside the motor! Crank toast, rods toast, block halves toast!

Symptom for this guy was cruising on the freeway and the oil light came on, pulled over checked oil and it was full. Drove another 10 miles and Clank, clank, grindy clank dead!

Mike

Thanks for that info, Mike. Scary info, but good info.

Maybe you 06 owners should consider doing it. Anybody have insight into how hard it is to drop the oil pan with the engine in the car?

Rear bolts can be a pain but with the car in the air and engine mounts unbolted you can raise the motor enough to get to them without too much drama.

The car we're working on is an STI, in fact all of the STI's have been complete failures and the WRX we caught while doing a motor refresh for someone as it was cracking but not completely gone.

I think at this point if I had something manufactured in the 06 range I would do this upgrade for sure.

Mike

Mike, what pickup would you recommend?

Whilst I have no first hand knowledge I am informed the Killer B unit works very well, there certainly hasn't been any reported failures of cars equipped with his piece.

Mike

Thanks Mike. Luckily, my WRX is pretty much sold lol, I was more worried about the STi and it's mileage but it's an 05. Does modification have any effect on rate of failure that you have seen?

As far as we can tell it looks to be a issue related to the original build/design and the failure is as likely to occur bone stock as it is modified. It almost looks like the brazing is weak and with vibration the tube eventually cracks.

Perhaps those with stiffer mounts may find the failure faster but I can't say for sure, the 06 STI we're working on had 54k and still has the mushy crap ass mounts that came on the MY06.

Mike

My 06 WRX is getting up there, and I am about to sell it to a friend. It's stock now. Should I worry about it? I don't want to screw over my friend but I don't really feel like dropping the pan.

Honestly I can't really recommend one way or another, I mean we have probably seen over 2000 MY06 turbo cars here and have encountered 4 problems so the odds are in favor of not having an issue. I will say though that if this does happen the cost is dramatic to repair so perhaps you could split the cost with your friend for a Killer B unit and have an install fest or something and get some help to knock out the install.

I am sure there are plenty of folks up there that would come over and lend a hand for pizza and beer.

Mike

I will pitch it to him, thanks for the advice Mike. I don't want to stress to much about a .2% chance lol. Have you seen any issues with 2005 STi's?

True

Not really only thing we see is the synchro's going out between 4th and 5th over time.

Mike