nathanmargolis,
Your stories repeat mine to the T! I've owned my BDR Cobra for 6 weeks and in that amount of time, I've managed to scrape the pan twice, resulting in small pin hole leaks in both instances. What gets me is that I am SUPER careful and vigilant about speed bumps and undulations in the road at intersections. Essentially, I realize I'm living on borrowed time with this 9 qt pan.
Thanks to the many helpful responses to my post, I've been able to narrow down to what I believe would be a good replacement pan from Aviaid. I called them up and spoke to John and after describing my issue, he pointed me to the Daytona Coupe pan for a 351W (p/n 155-55363). Its lower capacity (6 qt,) but the depth of the pan is only 6.5" (vs. the 8" depth that I'm having to deal with now). That's an improvement of 1.5" on clearance! Plus, their shop is only about an hour and 15 minutes from where I live. I plan on making a road trip out there soon to check out their product.
BUT, in the meantime, I was thinking in parallel with you about the skid plate and have implemented a fix for the time being. I picked up some sheet metal (about 0.05" thick) and cut it to the dimensions of the low portion of the pan, with an additional 1/4" added per side (12.5" x 10.5"). I notched the corners of the plate and then bent each edge upward to curl around the edge of the pan and upward. I then RTV'd several washers (about 0.05" thick) to the surface of the skid plate that was going up against the pan. Allowed them to dry 24 hours. Then I applied the high temperature RTV to the bottom of the skid plate and pressed it up against the
oil pan (the washers act as spacers and provide a small gap between skid plate and
oil pan. This gap works as a buffer to absorb impact without immediately damaging the pan). I then used a scissor jack, a 10" x 12" x 3/4" board and 1" foam to put slight pressure on the skid plate to hold it up against the pan. Gonna leave it for 24 hours and then fill the crankcase with new
oil.
At least this buys me some driving time with the Cobra until I do the permanent fix with the Aviaid pan. But the skid plate design should work pretty good. I have added another 0.10" of thickness to the bottom of the pan but at least I have a 'first wave of defense' now for those non Cobra friendly roadside hazards.