What's the damage from doing this?
 

I was topping up my oil with Redline, and noticed that along with the oil, the little round paper/foam insert in the bottle cap went into the engine. I'm not sure if it's made out of paper or styrofoam since it was my last bottle. I am fine to ignore it and assume it either melts or gets shredded by the valvetrain...or maybe it just sits in the sump..where does the oil go that you pour in, the top end or directly into the sump? If anyone knows for a fact this is a problem, let me know. I suspect this happens all the time. Thanks.

That seal is probably too big to fall directly down an oil passage down into the sump unless it was curled over. No worries, oil that's already free in the valve cover must fall and be filtered again before it is pressurized and used to lubricate. If it's just sloshing around, it won't cause any damage. It'll probably end up in pieces once broken down and be stuck to the oil pickup screen.

If you want, you can pull the valve cover and find it before it goes anywhere else.

Did you use a funnel? The funnel I use is too small to allow that or anyhing bigger to fall in.

My funnel even has a strainer in it. That being said, I just topped the car up using a bottle directly. Bummer that happened. I'd be nervous too.

See if you can shine a light in thru the valve cover and see if you can fish it out with a small piece of coat hanger? I wouldn't leave it in there.

:iagree:

pull the valve cover

:iagree:

Thats 2nd of course :tiphat:

Again, from somebody who has built and torn down engines regularly, it'll be fine. You'll be amazed at some of the crap I've pulled out of the oil pan of some of my builds. Many huge chunks of RTV, seals as described above - none of it has ever hurt anything. At WORST it will get stuck on the oil pickup in the sump as I said, and it may block a bit of flow. In that case, you'll want to pull the pan to fish it out.

The bad news, that paper is already stuck on the pickup if it was going to end up there anyway. It honestly depends on where the oil return passages are on the head, and how the filler hole interfaces with the valve cover baffling and such.

Id try to get that out of there regardless..potential to blocking the pickup flow can't be good imo..

yea especially on an engine that revs to 7500 rpm. if you get that thing clogged in the wrong spot you could have some major issues and warranty would not cover it

I have decided to just ignore it. I am not going to pull the engine apart. I opened another bottle of oil and confirmed that the cap seal that fell in is a paper material, it may even disintegrate over time as it absorbs oil and cooks at 230F.

You'll be fine then.

It's probably already broken down under the heat. If stuck on the oil pickup screen, it won't take long to just fall apart and get filtered away by the oil filter.

I'd be afraid as hell.