Description
BACKGROUND
Introducing our “ARMORY – McLaren Aluminum Oil Console”. Over the years, we have had countless conversations with McLaren owners and McLaren Dealer Technicians. Of these conversations, two engine complaints keep cropping up from the field; coolant hoses and oil consoles (aka. V-Module). Regrettably, both are known to create fire hazards, so it is a reliability and safety issue of the utmost concern.
The McLaren oil pressure system can see pressure as high as 10 bar (145 psi) in certain cold start situations (higher viscosity engine oil). However, the engine oil pressure is normally around 6.5 bar (95 psi) under normal operating temperatures and high RPM.
This engine oil pressure range of 95-145 psi is higher than most consumer grade air compressors. So if the stock plastic housing develops a small crack, it would exit into the hot engine bay at a high velocity and presumably in form of a fine mist. Since engine oil is a petroleum product, it is flammable; especially when aerated.
If the former did come to past, then all you would need is an ignition source to create a fire hazard. Given the close proximity of the exhaust manifolds and downpipes in a mid engine application, this is sufficient. Unfortunately, there are numerous reports of car fires where the engine oil console is suspected as the root cause.
According to our sources, this is a very common failure point in the field, where some very unlucky McLaren owners have had to have this part changed out multiple times on the same car for safety. The irony is they had to replace it with another plastic oil console that which may or may not fail in the same way during their ownership. There wasn’t a permanent solution to the problem.
Given these shortcomings, we knew we had to develop a better alternative for the McLaren restoration market….
DEVELOPMENT
The cracking of the stock plastic housing was the primary issue we had to solve since this was a safety concern. The solution of using aluminum was obvious, but we then had to decide on die-casting, 3D printing or CNC billet machining. Once all options was considered, we decided to move forward with CNC machining since it would have the best appearance, have the best tensile strength and we can make it rebuildable if it ever managed to dry one of its many internal seals. Machining happened to be the most difficult process since it would rely on a lot of internal sealing to keep the oil and cooling circuit separate. To mitigate this risk, we test each oil billet console in excess of 12 bar (175 psi) to make sure it can withstand anything you can throw at it, including cold starts in the most demanding of climates.
The trickiest part of the design process was figuring out how to invert a canister style filter to fit the same space restrictions as the cartridge and still have it drain properly on filter change. This means mitigating any mess and catching debris. For this, we designed a raised lip to act as reservoir tank while the oil drains into the console.
Once this was solved, we could now use any standard filter provided by our local parts store and be spoiled with options. This oil console accepts engine oil filters from Chevrolet 454 cu. in. (7.4 Liters) engine. Not only does not mean that the filtering capacity of one oil filter can handle the size of two McLaren 4.0 engines, it also means that engine oil filters for this engine type have been available since 1970; which is over 50 years! This virtually guarantees you can find a local supplier for this oil filter in any parts store in any corner of the world!
PRODUCT RELEASE
The only permanent “plug and play” solution to cracked plastic oil consoles when reliability and safety matters most. Completely rebuildable and arrives with a worry-free lifetime guarantee.
