Typical Oiling Modifications

[sanborn]

Early in November, I posted that we were building a SB for a friend to use in limited late model at the local track. To review, this is a 362" engine, W2 headed, non ported head, flat top piston, flat tappet camshaft. We think the engine will have to turn 8000 frequently(because of competition) so we have pretty much done everything we think necessary to live in that kind of environment. The oiling system is wet sump(because of cost). In this class, dry sump oiling systems are legal.

The modifications are fairly straight forward and can be accomplished with some extra long drill bits, rotary files and a lot of patience and care. I must admit, being an old geezer, and owning a Bridgeport, I did a lot of my work in the mill using the power feed to bore the holes. But, you can do the same thing using a hand drill.

Oiling Philosophy- My belief is all an oiling system must do is oil the rod bearings properly at max RPM. The trick is to get an adequate supply of oil to all the rod bearings. In order to do this you must start at the very beginning-the oil pickup.

For this engine we chose a Canton oil pan and pickup. The pan looked real good and at first look the pickup did too but closer inspection of the pickup reveiled some problems. The pickup tube is 3/4" OD and 5/8" ID. That's good but where they welded the pickup tube to the base, the weld flowed through the tube and closed the ID down to 1/2" in places. That's too small. We ground the excess weld away inside the tube to make the opening 5/8"