CKit

Great, well thought out and articulated post!

Totally agree with all of the above and would have done the exact same thing you did.

I also did keep the AC on my T3 race car because we're at minimum weight already and it helps with defogging in the rain.

davidc1

No problem. I like it when people aren't douchebags. I try myself not to be one...sometimes it's not easy, and sorry to anyone I may have been DB to in the past! lol

Anyway, I don't know exactly how many were sold with and without A/C brackets. I did know this before, when we were doing the initial production run, I kept track, but I don't remember exactly anymore. I think I mentioned it in the old thread though..

I'm pretty sure the vast majority were sold WITH the A/C bracket though. I don't remember hearing about any issues with it either on the thread or brought up to me personally through PM. On my pan, I do remember my mechanic mentioning is was difficult to get the bolts in and tighten them up, but, I don't remember him commenting on why it was difficult.

Regarding the timing of your purchase of both pans....the initial production run for the S2ki guys also included a few pans for non-forum members that heard about it through the grapevine. If I remember correctly, it also included about 10-15 pans produced for Canton's distributors and retailers and for the few people who heard about the "group-buy" a little late. I think the total run of pans was maybe in the 70's. Jeff told me that after this run, most likely they would only keep a couple in stock at a time, so, it would be entirely possible that some people who ordered in the future would have to wait for one to be made.

I'm pretty sure the A/C bracket issue is that all pans are made without it, and it's put on if the person ordering wants it. The A/C bracket thing was interesting and was essentially a surprise to Canton because I guess it's pretty rare to have the A/C mounted to the pan like our cars do.

So, there is a very good chance both of your pans were in the initial run, but that doesn't mean that it was same welder for the AC bracket or the same QC person looking at them.

Ian300D

I haven't read all this, but i've been tracking mine with AC bracket on first run and no leaks. I also got to see pressure on some long sweepers that def fill my oil catch can and no drop in pressure.

davidc1

way cool. I'm glad you have not had any problems.

EGbeater

Cool; thank you for "reporting in" Ian300D.

Thank you for this information David. I will note, though, that I had to wait about a month for my second pan (the one with the A/C bracket) from the time that I called them after discovering the first pan didn't have the A/C plate/bosses, because Canton told me they didn't have any built/in stock, and I actually had to give them my credit card info for them to reserve one of the units in their next production batch for me. So that would imply that the A/C compatible pan I received was NOT in the original production run.

It was probably difficult due to the bosses for the bolts being in slightly the wrong places.

On my Canton pan #2, the three bolts that go through the OEM aluminum A/C compressor bracket wouldn't even go through the bracket and start threading into the pan all at the same time because they weren't properly aligned. The first time I installed A/C-compatible pan #2, I had to ovalize one of the three holes in the OEM bracket substantially (about 1.5mm in one direction) to get the three bolts through and into the pan.

The second time (after the pan cracked and was sent back to Canton for repair), NONE of the bolts would go the bracket and align with the bosses on the pan. I had to ovalize the other two holes in my A/C bracket using a Dremel and then a 11/32" drill bit to get the bolts through and into the bosses of the pan.

This implies that Canton's jig for placing the bosses on the plate for welding has some play to it, OR it's just slightly off overall. Despite all the arguing and bickering in this thread so far, I think we'll all agree that Honda's build quality and consistency is impeccable, so it's unlikely that there's substantial variance on the alignment of the three holes in the OEM Honda A/C compressor intermediary bracket. Therefore, it's logical to place the blame for this misalignment on how Canton is manufacturing their pan.

For anyone who didn't take the time to ovalize the holes in the aluminum bracket so that the three bolts went through it easily, this sideloading of the mounting bolts COULD induce stresses into the Canton pan at the mounting plate area that eventually result in cracking. It's not just an inconvenience when the bolts don't go through without any resistance.

Here are the pics of where my pan cracked, after I got it off the car and cleaned it up (the pics I took with the pan still on the car and leaking oil aren't as clear):







And here is documentation of how the positioning of the pan on the bottom of the block + the length of the mounting bosses causes a 1/16" gap between either the bosses and the bracket, or the bracket and the A/C compressor... at least on my S2000. These are pictures I took very recently (last week), during the installation of my pan after it'd been repaired by Canton:







Without shimming that gap, I think the tension created on the welded on plate/bosses on the pan over time caused the cracking in that area. When I first installed the A/C-compatible pan, I was in a hurry to get the job done in time to take the car to Solo Nationals... that gap probably was there before too, but I didn't notice it.

This time, I found a couple washers that were the right size/diameter to fill that gap. I chose to shim the gap between the bracket and the A/C compressor rather than the bracket and the Canton pan simply because it's one less washer this way. The washers I used were actually a little too thin (by a few thousands of an inch; they slipped into the gaps somewhat easily) but I think it's close enough to perfect that there won't be any meaningful tension on the oil pan now.





Here are pics of the repaired areas on my pan after I got it back from Canton.

This is the "before" pic of the T-shaped weld area where oil leaked through a pinhole... there's basically no way to see the defect; it looks fine by eye as well as to the camera, at least to me (I have zero experience with welding):



And this is after being rewelded/replated:





This is the repaired area at the A/C mounting bracket... note that they ground the surface of the pan before welding the plate back on (a little sloppily, IMO) and that there's still visible evidence of one of the cracks (but, so far the pan isn't leaking):







These are closeups where you can see the old crack:





And this the area on the inside of the pan, right behind where that crack is... you can see how the metal was pulled and deformed:



I'll report back after I've tracked the car again, good or bad, but it'll probably be late April or May before I have an opportunity to take my S2000 back to a road course event.

davidc1

Good pics. Now I know what to look for when we pull my pan to inspect it. Especially the A/C bracket. I'll make sure Jeff see's these pics so he can bring it up with the guys at Canton.

Dave

CKit

Those are excellent pictures.

Looks like the main problem is with the accuracy of the AC bracket on the Canton pan.

Completely agree that lack of support and presence of side loading cracked the pan.

Not a failure of the pan-per-se, but in the accuracy of the AC bracket holes.

Most pans subjected to that kind of torque arm and force would be damaged.

I'm thinking that the "off" even though you didn't hit anything with the pan directly, was enough of an impact that it could have caused a big stress and load on the pan.

To be clear, I think the root cause of the failure is the fitment of the bracket (not the construction of the pan per se).

Has anyone else noticed the fitment issue? If so, we should send Canton a new AC bracket to model.

And I totally agree. Always try to avoid unsupported stress points on something that's going to see lots of vibration.

Alloy Craft

Looks to me that the crack is due to the loading of the serpentine belt on the ac pulley. The belt tension cantilever at that distance should create quite a bit of force on the rear mounting bolt. And since the 12 gauge ac mounting plate is welded to very thin steel sheet that can flex, there would be a stress zone where the two plates overlap near the rear most corner. The crack location and orientation indicates that the bottom most mount bung was trying to pull up and away from the oil pan, in exactly the direction that the belt is pulling. Does anybody know, is the pan made from 16 or 18 gauge steel? I believe the hole misalignment could be making things worse, but I dont think it is the main reason for the failure.

s2000ellier

i only bolted in 2 bolts for the ac, i wonder if that will make it better or worse?

EGbeater

I got nothin' for ya, sorry.


Your theory seems sound to me. There is another (distant) possibility: that the tip of the bottom-most mounting bolt for the A/C compressor bracket bottomed out slightly in the boss when I torqued it down, and this applied pressure to the mounting plate, which eventually cracked the welds around that boss.

This time, I also put washers under the heads of those three bolts and screwed them in by hand to make sure they weren't bottoming out before I started torquing them down... you can see one of the washers in the pic below: