Ok, I recently bought a very nice powder-coated oil pan on-the-cheap that I intend to use on my 280Z (pan gasket needs replaced, so I figured it's as good a time as any!). Powder coating looks very nice. The question that occurred to me, after receiving it, is that the inside of the oil pan is also powder coated. My understanding is that powder coating is impervious to just about anything, but are there any negatives to having this material inside the engine? I gather that people sometimes paint the inside of the block, so I figure powder coat in the oil pan should be as safe as that, right?

The inside of the cam covers on my Westfield are powder coated and it has never caused a problem. They have been like that for five years and the powder coat is still there, good as new (The car has only done 6000km in that time so it hasn't had an exhaustive test though).

It won't hurt anything as long as the surface was prepaired correclty.I have

installed many powder coated parts in and on engines with no problems.

JZM

Just make sure you don't hit anything. If you get a big dent in the pan then maybe it will chip on the inside.

I forgot to tell you that the later 280ZXs came with a coating in the oil pan.

Not sure why?I usually remove it, due to exc.coating brake down that does a good job of plugging up the oil pick-up....some of the engines I build,I polish the inside.[completely]yes it takes a lot of time but in the end it's worth of it to my customers and I.

P.S.my opinion of powder coating-it's good stuff,it last along time and it looks great when done right.

JZM

Hmm. Well, I don't hear any "OMG-don't do that-you'll die!" sort of problems. If I'm whacking the heck out of the oil pan, then I have some big problems already (I don't intend to be an off-roader ). Getting all of the coating off the inside of the pan would be next to impossible, wouldn't it? All those hidden areas, and the plate covering a bit of the sump area would make it very difficult to clean off.

Thanks for the thoughts/advice. The engine has 125K on it right now, but is running strong. Probably rebuild it in a few years anyway, just for fun...