Getting to to oil pumps, when I was playing with 272-312 Ford Y Blocks 50 ish years ago, I seem to recall the earlier Y blocks used a oil pump with GM style straight spur gears, and the gear driven by the distributor, had a round stub on the bottom that fit into a hole in the thick cast iron lower cover. Around 1957, I believe, Ford switched to a gerotor style oil pump, with a thin, flat steel plate, like the FE, small block, and other Ford pushrod engines for decades afterwards, and no more lower support stub. I wonder if the engineers considered the gerotor pump more efficient, or if it was for reduced noise, since the Y Block oil pumps were mounted on the outside of the engine, at the rear, not far from the firewall.
