Pacifica One-Piece Oil Pan

[jeffhoward001]

Super weird question: Does anyone know if the one-piece aluminum Pacifica oil pan is a drop-in replacement on the Journey 3.6? Only issue I can see is if they changed the oil pickup as well.

 

Let me explain: I'm having some oil temp issues towing. Started asking around on the Durango, RAM, and Jeep forums, and turns out its an issue with the 3.6. The coolant-based oil cooler just can't keep up when the ambient air temp is 85+ and the oil temp sllloooowwwlly creeps up to about 250. Which honestly isn't terrible for full synthetic. The issue is now with your base temp on the flats @ 250, then you hit the hill your in trouble.

 

So one solution is to go with a larger all aluminum oil pan, which they started using on the revamped 3.6 in the Pacifica. Unfortunately due to the plastic canless oil filter system, the typical $200 oil cooler fix won't work, so this is the next best bet.

[2late4u]

your best bet would be the dealership part store for info on fit and other specs,and to be honest we dont usually get to many questions on trans overheating on journeys and might be because the have such a low towing limit most that do are over extending their journeys limits,,,good luck on what you find and please report back for others to learn

[John/Horace]

Oil cooler relocation kit probably better, has remote cooling inlet ports, uses a canister style metal filter. Probably just leave existing housing in place as secondary filtering.

 

[John/Horace]

Oil pans are way different appearance, doubt they interchange. Black is std metal 3.6 oil pan.

 

 

[John/Horace]

Use best oil you can and change it more often. I don’t ever go near their max oil change milage, oil not that pricy compared to major repairs.

[jeffhoward001]

Thanks John, where are the remote cooling inlet ports? I can't find much reference to it online.

[John/Horace]

 

 

You would  have to add t connections on existing coolant supply and return lines on the vehicle, then feed into the ports on the external filter housing in pic. Some cars are build like this from factory. Quite a bit of work to ad on.

 

Not many cooling fins on the Pacifica oil pan. Some pans like one in pic from a Hyundai have tons.

Edited August 12, 2020 by John/Horace

[John/Horace]

The newer pentastar 3.6 has a lot of non compatible parts I have read. The new aluminum pan will not fit it sounds like.

 

 

 

PENTASTAR V6 UPGRADE HIGHLIGHTS & MASTER TECH UPDATES
 Reference Book and Tech News
The upgraded Pentastar is the first production engine to feature HG-R1 coated timing chain guides. The coating reduces friction and increases timing chain life.
Block Components
A higher volume, two-stage oil pump is mounted to the lower front of the block and driven by a separate chain. As before, the new pump is electronically controlled for two stages of operation. The current and new pumps are not interchangeable.
The oil is pumped from a one-piece aluminum oil pan. The pan acts as an oil- cooler and adds strength to the bottom end of the engine. Trail-rated vehicles still use a two-piece aluminum and steel oil pan.
The new Pentastar uses 0W-20 oil, which helps economy and is required for the VVT and VVL systems.
While the oil temperature sensor is moved from the oil cooler module to the rear of the right cylinder head (Figure 21), the oil pressure sensor remains on the oil cooler,

[jeffhoward001]

After mulling it over, I think I'm going to hand-roll my own solution.  I'm going to attempt a simple aluminum heat-exchanger glued to the bottom of the pan with thermal epoxy.  I've seen a few other guys online do it for other vehicles that don't have a good placement for the pass-through style oil coolers.  Circle-track guys have been using deep-well aluminum pans that drop down into the unobstructed air for oil cooling for decades.  This would be a similar solution, but I'm thinking about doing a little closed-loop coolant re-circulation.

 

It's a pretty low-risk accessible solution, whereas anything to do with the stock oil cooler requires removing the upper & lower intakes, injectors, etc.  And beyond that, I'd be nervous screwing with the stock filtering/cooling system.  Screw something up there, and you're looking at potential engine damage.  Passive cooling through the bottom of the pan is low-risk.

 

If it turns into anything interesting, I'll be sure to share my Frankencooler