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Original Message
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| You've got a solid oiling system baseline. |
| By Dave Shoe - 06/21/2004 10:15:50 PM; IP 216.243.176.34 |
First off, the stock pan is more of a danger when you are accelerating on the road than revving on a dyno. The 428CJ never used a stock pan and windage tray together. The windage tray came about sometime around January 1969 because early CJs were proving to accelerate fast enough to suck the 390 car pan dry and destroy engines, thus the late-CJ pan was customized, the windage tray added, and the dipstick recalibrated.
The two common types of baffling in stock pans either whip the oil toward the sump via a slanted vertical baffle or alternately it shields the oil from the crank to allow it to drain back to the sump with minimum interruption from the crank via a horizontal baffle. Neither prevents oil from dumping to the rear of the engine on a hard launch.
Your oil starvation, as you mentioned, sounds related to starting with a low oil level in the pan. It's logical that more than a quart was consumed from the 5-quart pan when the engine passages and filter were filled upon startup.
The FE, as stock, has an excellent oiling balance. Cammer 427s installed in factory-developed A/FX Mustang dragsters used a stock capacity pump, a fancy pan, and pressure was regulated to 60PSI at all RPMs above 3500RPM (it crept up to 65PSI at 8500 due to insufficient bypassing capacity). There is really no need for serious PSI at idling RPMs because you just ain't straining anything, and the extra flow doesn't help.
I'd focus first on spending at least $96.00 on a Milodon stock replacement pan. Though you have not yet experienced the real weakness of the FE oil pan, the minimum pan Milodon offers is well equipped for basic strip and roadcourse action, so long as acceleration isn't too high. Use your CJ-type windage tray to prevent the crank from blowing excessively on the oil returning to the sump from the drainback shelf and also to help prevent the crank from whipping the sumped oil up the starboard side of the engine and to the back of the engine. Screw the ambiguous "left" and "right", use "port" (drivers side) and "starboard" (passenger side) when describing an engine function.
You can safely start out with just a totally, completely stock FE oiling system (as you have fortunately done) and an aftermarket pan (which you need to do), and hit the dragstrip with success. Topoiling ruled NASCAR before the Cammer, and has never failed to prove it's capability. Any literature that claims otherwise doesn't understand the FE.
Drill passages all ya want, but I'm not gonna recommend it, since it just ain't never needed. Ever. What is needed if you upgrade the pump is a reinforced oil pump driveshaft and also oiling restrictors to the heads. The main reason for upgrading the oil pump is if you open up the bearing clearances a bunch. Oil will gush from the larger clearances a bit faster, though a stock pump will most often be capable of handling all the extra gushing in efficient form, unless you are supercharging, as supercharging allows you to make gobs of horses at low RPMs, and a high-volume pump only comes in handy at low RPMs, since it flows a little more at low RPMs. A stock-volume high-pressure (80 PSI) pump is comforting in a high-horse, high-revving engine, but you must properly restrict certain passages to prevent the extra pressure of this pump from causing oil starvation.
I suspect you've had no oiling damage, since you detected the low oil pan early and at low power levels, you added oil which eliminated the problems, and had no capacity to over-accelerate the pan and dump the sump to the rear of the engine. You have already gotten your money's worth at the dyno. I wish the best for the continued tuning of your engine.
This is mostly unsubstantiated B.S. and all personal opinion that scoffs in the face of most established literature. Please use it carefully and don't be afraid to question it out loud as being flat-out wrong.
Shoe. |
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