[heymanwatchthis]

In ran my 986S in an autocross last weekend and experienced an unusual situation that perhaps you can help me with. It is an oiling issue I would expect to see on a track running sticky tires vs autocross on street tires.

I am running summer street tires (Sumitomo HTRZ3). PSS9 suspension. Oil is changed regularly, no metal flakes, engine runs very strong.

After a couple of runs I noticed a ticking sound, like a lifter tick after each run. Right after one of the runs, when there was the ticking sound, I turned off engine and checked the oil level with the electronic gauge and dipstick - the oil level was under the bottom level mark. The car never had a starting problem or warning light.

The tick went away after the car sat a minute or so, oil levels were right up to a little over the middle of the stick and gauge, and the engine ran extremely well.

During runs I was in second gear the whole time, and was at high RPMs a couple of times - not sure how high, however never hit rev limiter, my guess was around 6k tops.

Before autocross (and typically) I checked the oil level when car was cold, was a little over the middle (i.e. in between low and high lines) with dipstick and gauge. I have a relatively fresh change of Mobil 1 10w-40 I did in around March.

My theory - I have been running my oil level low by checking it cold vs hot. Is fine on the street, but G's and high rpm's cause low oil symptoms to show up. When hot more oil gets into various parts of engine vs sitting in sump. The manual says to check it warm, after a couple of minutes for oil to settle in sump - I have been using wrong technique by checking it cold.

I cannot imagine I need a deep sump, or accusump - again, my thought is that I was a little low on oil.

Has any experienced this, or can provide some insight?

Thanks!

Gary