oil warning light

[ricardo jamin]

At last autox funrun I decided to drove slightly below my limit and just concentrate on working the ideal line.
During one of this funrun I noticed my oil light warning lit up for a brief moment(maybe a sec, maybe even less).
I noticed this when taking one of the hairpin. I’m not sure if I only noticed this because I was driving less than the limit hence had more time to scan the gauge, or its really the only time it happened.
On the upside 2 more run after that I didn’t see the oil lit up anymore, with me consciously checking the lamp. Although I did take it easy on the car after that.

I checked the oil level and its about 80% between min and max. the car is an e36 M3.
Should I be worry if I only see the oil light just that brief moment? Anything I should check/do for now?
I read that people overfilled their e36 m3 when doing trackday. Is this really ok todo? do they have to draw it out again for street uses?

thanks,
–ricardo

[Hal Dorton]

We run our E36 M3 a half a quart over filled at all times. Autocross is violent and the oil sloshes around in the pan quite a bit. If the pump goes dry your light can flicker.

[Rob Powers]

The big U-turn in the middle of the course was pretty high lateral G. If you slowed down a little and didn’t overdrive it, you may have managed to pull a higher g-force around that turn. This could have pushed your oil to the left side of the sump and possibly starved the pickup for a second.

I was dual-driving with Paul (which he hadn’t planned for), and we ended up getting fuel starvation after the U-turn on our last couple runs because the fuel level was < 1/4 tank at that point. The fuel was getting pushed to the left side of the tank (and the fuel pickup on E36's is on the right side).

Overfilling the oil by 1/2 quart is definitely the way to go with E36's.

[Jeff Roberts]

[quote=”RobP” post=330]Overfilling the oil by 1/2 quart is definitely the way to go with E36’s.[/quote]

And non-M E46’s too.

[ricardo jamin]

Thanks for the info. I’ll overfill by half quartz for the next autox.

–r

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