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Here's my $0.02 on the subject with my experience with a daily driver before and after the extra oil sump: One bad encounter for ANY car will ruin your whole day and those encounters come in many forms. For any car that is pushed, be it street or off-road, the deep sump greatly reduces (if not eliminates) oil starvation on more extreme driving situations such as hard cornering. A flashing oil light when I was hitting corners hard was no more once I got a 1.5 oil sump. Also, having a bigger engine that can rev higher means it'll pump more oil up into the engine than what can come down so the extra capacity insures there's plenty of oil if such situations occur (typically race-only engines). I doubt that the higher speed cruising would require the sump unless you were also taking sweeping curves at those speeds as well. Again, we're talking about pushing the car harder than it was engineered back in the day ;-) I found no noticeable cooling differences with the extra capacity. Having the full-flow does give you more oil but since that extra capacity is 'taken up' in the plumbing and filter you don't really see it helping as there is no oil in the place you need it, at the oil pickup tube! With the sump, even if your dipstick reads a quart low, you still have the peace of mind that there's still a quart and a half EXTRA with a pickup tube deeply submerged within it :-) Okay, I just went out to my cooold garage and looked at the clearances on my lowered baby, sporting a 1.5 oil sump. Here are the rough measurements with a tape measure: - Bottom of rear shock mount to ground: 5.75" - Bottom of custom exhaust tubing that runs UNDER the lower cooling tin to ground: 6" - Bottom lip of oil sump plate (lowest point of 1.5 oil sump in other words) to ground: 6.75" This means if I drive over a log which has a length that fits within my wheelbase (that is, the car passes over it without the tires running over it), my lower shock absorber mount is gonna hit it first (technically, the log would stop at the nose of my car :-D). If I continue, my exhaust will be the next item to hit it. Now, even if I had a stock exhaust system with heat exchangers they would be equal to or lower than my oil sump plate! I drive my baby on the streets only (she used to see the occational logging road) and I worry about potholes destroying a wheel long berfore I think about my car dropping so far down as to scrape the bottom of the engine. Steep driveways aren't an engine problem because my exhaust system will touch ground way before my engine. I even had my left rear wheel come off the car (granted, the speed was 10mph, tops) and the oil sump did not touch asphault. In fact, I can still see the scrape on the bottom of the shock absorber :-) Did my previous, stock daily-driver automatic Canadian have a 1.5 sump? No. Didn't need it. I didn't drive her hard. Even 80mph on the freeway with curves she was fine without it. She was a lightsider and driven as such so it wasn't necessary. Toby Erkson -- Portland, Oregon -- http://www.icbm.org/ '72 VW Squareback Darksider, 5-speed, 2007cc, rag top '95 VW Jetta 2.0L, CHE tranny w/Peloquin LSD, 270¼, TT Chip, SCCA Solo 2 EP#3 '73 Porsche 914 2.0L WIP; '81 Honda Gold Wing, 1100cc, stripped ----- Original Message ----- >>...such problems are rare, but it only takes one bad encounter to ruin your whole day. >> >>So, for a street car, since the cooling and oil supply is already fine, I just don't see the point. >...On the 1.5 hour drive to LA from here people absolutely haul ass, and if you are in the carpool lane you are expected to keep pace with the fast lane! This means regularly cruising 3500+ rpms. I have ruled out a taller 4th (or 5th) gear to bring those revs down, as the conventional wisdom (perhaps the wisdom-wisdom... I don't know enough about it to determine) is that this would cause the engine to overheat, so better to run at higher rpm on a stock tranny and try to mitigate potential oil overheating and starvation problems that could result. The new engine and full-flow/cooler system is now dialed in completely, and thus I don't have any cooling issues to speak of. However, despite the extra capacity added by the full flow and cooler, I do not have extra sump capacity/reserve, and this concerns me when I turn down the music and hear that engine screaming (albeit beautifully ;) in the background... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~