First Oil Change.

[Brian E]

I was able to put about 475 miles on the SRT10 this past two weeks, so I decided to change the oil.
I had a friend build me the step up ramps for my GTS, so I tried them out on this car and they worked great. I had no problem getting under the car and had plenty of room to maneuver around.
I drove the car around for about 30 minutes to get the oil hot.
When I refilled the car, it took 10.5 quarts of oil w/filter. I let it sit overnight and rechecked the oil level and it is dead on full.
Now the reason for this post:
Is my memory failing me or did Dodge move the oil dipstick from the drivers side in 03 to the passenger side in 04? Has anyone else noticed this or am I all wet?
Was the move related to the oil starvation issue at high G forces? Did Dodge revise the oil pan to solve this issue?

 

[SRT10]

Brian, my 03 dip stick is on the passenger side. They never were on the drivers side for SRTs. Here's some info on oil starvation..
http://www.viperclub.org/faq/techfaq.html#accusump
It seems(early?) GTS cars were more suceptible to oil starvation at high Gs.

"'92 - 96 Vipers had an "overcapacity" of oil....nearly 10 useable quarts. GTS motors have less oil, a different pan, and a new block. 7 useable quarts. The Viper GTS may have a temporary "oil starvation" problem when pulling high-G turns, especially if you run the A/C (see above question). If you run R-1s, or slicks, you are pulling even more lateral G’s, and are likely to be shunting your oil to one side in turns, even to the point of exposing the oil pan
pickup.....lowering oil pressures immediately. Trouble is, in a 1.3+G turn, who is watching the Oil Pressure ? In fact, the stock oil pressure gauge has so large of a time delay in it’s indication circuitry that a zero-oil-pressure condition would be indicated only after a few seconds of it occurring. But by then you’re back on the straightaway, and the gauge will indicate a momentary dip, at best.

During the Team Viper SCCA-T1 Test at Phoenix, the on-board system was taking data acquisition from many places on the car. They discovered the potential of a bottom end oil starvation problem as well, that was NOT picked up by the (higher up) Oil pressure Sending unit. Indeed, it took about 2-3 seconds ina G-turn to make the analog guage drop so you would notice...but the OIL was gone, thrown sideways, in a heartbeat".

 

[Brian E]

Hi SRT.
I was curious to see if I was all wet on the dipstick location, so If you look at a picture of the SRT10 motor in the fall issue of Viper magazine, page 12 and Dodge Viper SRT10 The Official Story, page 49 it shows the dipstick on the drivers side.
Not a big deal, but I thought Dodge might of made a change nobody picked up on.

 

[SRT10]

Brian your right, pg49 and there it is. Go figure. That's the first time I've seen it on the drivers side. Maybe pre-production?

 

[Jeremy Bigham]

i'm sure it's just a mirror image pic...tricky photographers