blown oil filter gasket on cold start up.

Solution- Don't waste your money on cheap Empi Sh!t. Buy from someone who will guarantee what you're buying is made properly.

+1

Oh I hear ya. It was on the car when I bought it (2 weeks ago) and is coming off.

Gene Berg offers an oil pressure relief cover that is an excellent peice. The next seals  you blow out with that high oil presure when the oil is cold, will be your O-rings under your factory oil cooler and you definately don't want to do that

Jesse is absolutely right.

Plus, I hope you're not running 40 or 50 weight oil in a cold climate and tried to start it under 50 degrees.  If so, it probably was less the fault of the empi filter mount (which is still junk) and more the fact that your oil pump was putting out 300 pounds of oil pressure and the filter gasket blew.

It could have been much worse - the filter might have exploded and blown oil all over the place instead of just the gasket blowing it in one direction.   ;&gt

Get a Berg pressure-limiting oil pump cover and run thinner oil in the winter.

ok thanx. ill try to find that 

Hi Tomcat!  I went into Gene Berg's website and found a listing for the oil relief cover under "oil system".  I could'nt find a price or part #; the catalogue seems a little difficult to navigate through(at least for me). There is a great tech write-up about oil pressure issues in his "oil system" section. There is a mountain of valuable info that Gene Berg had accumulated through his years of racing and product development. All of this info is in this site pertaining to all products he sells. You will not go wrong using any of his products or advice.  J.P

http://www.geneberg.com/cat.php?cPath=5_125_2740

Berg's website is difficult to navigate if you've never been there before. Go to the parts catalog, in the product catagories click on "oiling system", click on "oil pressure relief covers" and (after that page shows up- I know it's a pita!) click on "use with or without FF". If you can wade through it, as Jesse said, there's a ton of invaluable technical material there. Berg was very upfront with his information.

too thick of oil will do it also,  as will the stiff bypass spring,  as will dyno oil trying to get through the lines if you raise the rpm to high to fast befor the oil starts thining.  I use 5-20 synthetic, almost as thin as water and lubes a lot better than dynosaour oil.   As for the empi filter adaptor I wouldnt wory about it, as Ive not seen a filter with the gasket&therads perfect either, just be sure to tighten it better with oil on the gasket,  and yes they can become looser with time & heat cycling.  I have a billet one on mine and it needed a lot of work before I was happy with it. most of the cars Ive seen that do this have 20-50 in them. 50 is too thick.

Any experience with CSP's oil pump cover with built in high pressure relief?  Looks like a quality unit. They're proud of them.

not csp's but a bergman unit that I had to totaly redoo,it was doodo. and some of the filter pumps have a relief on them,but it isant realy a relief but a bypass(bypasses the filter, so your shooting funkey non filtered oil to the motor&cooler, but it is a vw so what the hell) just check to be sure it does seal off & open, some are adjustable some arnt.a small amount of leekage past the ball/piston is acceptible, and can keep cavatation down too. but for me the vw pressure relief seems to work fine,most other engines have them at the pump too. about the only issue I see with the oe vw oil relief system is the exhaust port is kinda small.for the guys that run the way to thick oil for some reason.

I imagine it is comparable to Gene Berg's pressure relief oil pump cover.  Both make seriously good products.

Gordon:

I assume, then, that 10w40 is too thick for winter startup?  My car is put away, but on some of these sunny winter days, it's tempting to take it for a spin.  However, I have no desire to lose the oil all over the garage floor with an exploding oil filter.

I use 20w/50 in the summer but changed to 10w/40 back in the Fall.

Thanks,

Bob

>>>>>>>>>>>>

What leads to blown filter seals is generally the following:

-Loose oil filters, the old trick of hand tightening doesn't cu it with full flow.

-filter housings that are not machined evenly or aren't flat

Tighten the hell out of it and if necessary coat both sides of the seal with Loctite 518. It may not be standard or acceptable practice to some, but sometimes the only way to win the game is to break the rules.

Jake's a righteous dude.  A few years back he told me about machining and polishing my heads and intake manifolds so I could eliminate my achilles heal of blowing intake manifold gaskets due to way-oversized intake ports.  I did, and his suggestion works great, so I did the same thing to the mating surface of my spin-on oil filter mount.  I don't think I crank the filter on as much as Jake recommends, but I use a strap-wrench and give it 1/4 turn after hand tight and thought that was enough.

On the oil, if it's a warm day and your garage is over 50 F inside when you want to start the car AND you're running dino 10W-40, I would probably start it.  I would also leave the 10W-40 in there for next summer.  Unless you're running stiffer springs in your pressure relief valves, all the 50 weight will do is bypass most of the oil from your pump right to the sump, rather than going through the feed galleys to lube your bearings AND you run a great chance of blowing the O-rings at the bottom of your cooling tower.  Unless you're running a race-modified version of this engine, you don't need 50 weight dino oil in it.  Synthetic 20w-50 wt is a different beast entirely, but I still wouldn't run it under 40 degrees.

It was 48 today, maybe warmer in the direct sun. I left the garage open and the sun warmed the inside up. I have always wondered what my oil pressure was, so I bought a mechanical gauge and plumbed it in with a male/female AN-8 adapter with a pipe thread fitting. Initial oil pressure was 80 psi at 1500 rpms. After 5 minutes it was down to 40 psi at 1500. When fully warmed up, oil and heads, the pressure was 20 psi at 900 rpm. I am sure the pressure will be less at 90 F.

I have one of Jakes type1s, and am running 20-50 dino oil and a Berg pressure relief cover. No internal cooler, bypass plate installed, external Mesa 96 plate cooler, Empi remote filter bracket, oil thermostat, and AN-8 lines and fittings.

I agree I should put 10-40 in it in the winter, but I really don't run much in the winter, and if I do, allow a LONG warmup period with my had throttle.

Anyway, not bad considering the 27,000 miles of hard life this highly tuned engine has seen.

I always use a Wixx 51515R filter, they don't blow out ever in my experience.