I went to drive the car today since the weather was going to be favorable, backed out and about freaked out when I saw about a 2' diamter puddle of oil!

My first thought was, "Well, I did just change the oil last weekend, maybe I didn't get the drain bolt tight..."
So I pulled back in and drove a different car. Just got home a while ago and put the car up on jack stands. Oil all over crossmember at the rear of the pan. Cleaned it up with some Gumout and wiped it all down. Tightened up the pan bolts that I could get to a smidge, nothing was really loose.

I guess I'll keep an eye on it for a few days....

 

did ya change the oil filter at the same time? i dumped my oil like that once, my oil filter wasent tight.

i made a hell of a mess of the neighbors driveway, lol.

 

There's so many places these engines can bleed oil, and it all seems to collect on the rear of the subframe.

Last month I fixed 4 oil leaks on the FD motor, and all of it appeared on the rear of the subframe.

What you need to do is get under the car and see which side of the motor the oil is on. If you're lucky it's only one side. You can then feel where the the oil is along the top of the subframe along either side of the oil pan.

Underneath is also the easiest place to spot some of the leaky spots when you can shine a light up on the side of the engine.

As you just changed the oil though, maybe you're really lucky and it was just some spillage.

 

2 feet diameter?

The only time i had that much spillage is when I realized I never put the drain bolt back on, and that was because I was sleep deprived and it was hot as **** outside

 

Yeah...it's weird.
I've always had a small leak ever since I put the new engine in, there'd be a small spot collect under the engine that would expand to about palm size after a month or two whether I drove the car or not. This latest one just was much larger, though not quite the 'two feet' I thought at first (old stain) but still larger than normal. Since it's been on the jackstands I see just one small little drip from the crossmember. I checked the filter and the drain plug and they are fine, there are no obvious major leaks I can see. But as we all know, these things can and often do leak from the pan gasket, which I suspect this one is, and it is just getting a little worse.

 

Be sure to find the source of the leak before pulling the oil pan.

When there's an oil leak, it frequently looks like the oil pan is leaking as much of the oil runs down the motor and along the pan and drips onto the rear of the subframe.

I've had a number of leaks, and it almost always looked like the oil pan at first.

Candidate leaks:

* turbo oil lines and/or return lines
* malfunctioning OMP check valves
* disconnected OMP lines
* leaking behind the OMP
* front cover ( I think I still have a small leak there)
* oil line to the front left of the motor

If you find oil on the engine, try to clean it as best you can,
(assuming the car is on jack stands here) and then run the car
until it is warmed and you can see oil dripping.

Shut the car off and get under it to find where the motor is wet from oil.

Don't forget that most everything under there will be hot.

 

This motor mount bolt SEEMS to be the problem....

 

Greg,
It might just be the angle in the picture and the effect of the camera flash, but that MM bolt in the extreme lower left doesn't look like it's all the way tight. I also see gray gasket maker and some orange...like you might also have the OEM gasket. ??

 

Just a thought, but based on the look of that MM bolt...errr....mess a common problem is use to too much rtv/gasket goop or failure to clean out the bolt hole of old material in the rear iron sufficiently such that when the MM bolt isinstalled and tightened down it will actually crack the rear iron leading to an unholy oil mess.
For your consideration. Hope your issue turns out for the better.
Regards,
Crispy

 

Stock gasket, yes. I did run tap thru all the motor mount bolts holes before installing the bolts. I got a little excessive with the gray stuff but it is really just external.

Shoot, for all I know the real leak is from the front of the engine somewhere that I can't really see and is simply migrating to the rear, as others have suggested.

It's an annoyance.