If you spend any time at the drag strip with your modern Dodge Challenger or Charger, you likely know that fluid on the track is the most common cause of racing delays. When a racer breaks an engine or transmission, they often dump fluid on the track that makes the surface very slippery, leading to a time-consuming cleanup process. To help minimize the time lost during fluid cleanups, many tracks and event promoters are beginning to require engine diapers for many classes. Engine diapers are designed to catch and absorb oil that may come out of a broken engine and they work fairly well, but there are some downsides. In some cases, there is not enough clearance around the engine for the diaper to fit and in other vehicles, the location of the exhaust components can melt the straps. Also, wrapping the lower portion of your engine in a heavy cloth bag can hold in heat and extra heat is never good when you are racing.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to an engine diaper in the form of containment pans, and the folks at 1320Tunes and Race Prep Performance recently teamed up to create pans for the modern Dodge Challenger and Charger. These pans use the bolt holes from the factory plastic underbody shield, but these containment pans are deeper than those factory plastic shields, catching any oil that may come out of the engine in the event of catastrophic failure. These pans are easier to install than an engine diaper, they don’t hold heat against the engine, they offer the same protection against spilling fluids onto the track and they provide some protection against debris that might kick up. Also, engine diapers don’t protect against lifted cylinder heads, while engine oil containment pan extends past the balancer to catch coolant from water pumps and coolant hose area.
Notice that I keep saying “pans” and not “pan”, as 1320 Tunes and Race Prep Performance created both an engine pan and a transmission pan which work together to cover the area under the car where fluids are most likely to run when things go wrong. The engine pan weighs just 7.7 pounds and will hold 11 quarts of fluid while the transmission pan weighs 4.4 pounds and holds 13.86 quarts, both of which have absorbent material at the bottom to prevent the fluid from sloshing around while the car is moving. The engine pan for the modern Dodge Challenger and Charger costs $449 and the transmission pan costs $349 – making them less expensive than comparable engine and transmission diaper options on the market today. These will fit any modern Challenger or Charger, except for those running a turbocharger setup due to the added piping under the car – but 1320 Tunes boss Sumit Goyal said that pans for turbo applications are currently in the pipeline.
If you are going racing with your modern Dodge Challenger or Charger – particularly those Hellcat models running big boost and making big power – these pans are a great way to meet restrictions on fluid containment without the downsides of an engine diaper.
