Oil mods list?

[67xr7cat]

That block is why I say either build a common easy to find and cheap 390 block and make a 445 out of it or buy an aftermarket block like a BBM or Pond.  Just saw a .017" over S/O block sell for $3,200. 

As to blocks cracking, it is not just FE's that crack at the main oil feed hole up to the cam, are a lot of other cam in block blocks do the same. Other place common is at the main cap bolt hole. Best advice be use a light rotating assembly, balance everything, and keep the engine out of Detonation! Fun fact on at least the early 427 blocks Ford machined the main oil holes at the mains wider so guess they were more concerned with oil to the crank at the time.  I would not recommend do it today as not needed.

Regarding the reason for the side oiler, only reason Ford did it was for NASCAR use where had to go 500 miles at 7,000 rpm.  They also widened the rod journal and had special bearing made. This was to increase the load bearing area. The other thing they did was cross drill the crank which cause oil starvation at high RPM.  The solution enough oil pressure and more direct feed path (Side oiling) to over come the centrifugal force making the oil go the wrong direction in the crank. Also keep in mind NASCAR made them sell this stuff in cars back then to be legal to race.

As said the T/O oiling system is similar to a SBC and nobody complains about SBC oiling.  The difference is the SBC does not oil the rockers off of #2 & 4 cam bores and the rod bearing is wider. The FE has one of the narrowest rod bearing of any American V-8.  Want to improve the oiling on a T/O FE? other than a good pan would be oil the rockers via lifters and block the rocker feeds. Find some cam bearing that are not drilled and drill the cam feed holes smaller to restrict the oil to the cam and use a cam that is not grooved at #2 and 4 journal.  Finally use a crank with a BBC rod jounal sizing. Of course good luck finding a non-drilled cam bearing, but anyways that is my 2 cents on the subject.

 

[blykins]

  Want to improve the oiling on a T/O FE? other than a good pan would be oil the rockers via lifters and block the rocker feeds.

That is a key statement.  Instead of trying to hog out all the holes and make things bigger, be strategic on where the oil goes.   There's a tremendous amount of oil going to the heads in unrestricted mode.   I oil through the pushrods on almost every FE I build.  When you block the feeds to the heads and oil through the pushrods, you can even restrict oil to the rockers by restricting at the pushrod without restricting oil to the lifters. 

In addition, I'll say that if you wanted to restrict oil at the lifters, you can restrict oil to each individual lifter gallery leg if necessary and a bank of hydraulic roller lifters will work perfectly fine on a .188" orifice there, even while oiling the rockers through the pushrods. 

[plovett]

They had deep sump pans way back when.  It's funny how we rediscover these things.

http://www.mustangtek.com/Library2/MuscleParts.html

pl

[blykins]

Well sure, but for the most part, guys didn't run them on the street and those deep pans didn't have all the oil control features that the pans now have.  Now days, we don't reach for stock pans as a default.   A street pan usually consists of a 7-8 quart oil pan and the good ones have trap doors to keep the oil where it needs to be.

[plovett]

They are right in the catalogs back then.  I wasn't running FE's back then so I am not sure how many people were or weren't using deep pans.   I don't think you need trap doors for a street/strip or even a full on strip car.  I think baffles work.  My modern  Milodon deep pan just has a baffle to resist rearward movement of the oil in straight line acceleration.

These old catalogs are cool!  Lots of cool stuff in them. 

pl

http://www.mustangtek.com/Library2/68CobraPartscatalog.html

[SSdynosaur]

They had deep sump pans way back when.  It's funny how we rediscover these things.

http://www.mustangtek.com/Library2/MuscleParts.html

pl

That's the very rationale that prompted Ford to install deep-sump pans on every Thunderbolt and Light Weight Galaxie they built in 1964.

[plovett]

They had deep sump pans way back when.  It's funny how we rediscover these things.

http://www.mustangtek.com/Library2/MuscleParts.html

pl

That's the very rationale that prompted Ford to install deep-sump pans on every Thunderbolt and Light Weight Galaxie they built in 1964.

Cool!  Did you check the price list in the back of the Ford catalog?  $43.70 for the deep sump pan.   It looks baffled in the picture, but I can't tell for sure.  The Shelby one is certainly more elaborate with baffles and doors. The 2x4 MR dual plane intake was $115.85.   I know that was a lot more money back then, but that is still neat to think about.

pl

[wowens]

They had deep sump pans way back when.  It's funny how we rediscover these things.

http://www.mustangtek.com/Library2/MuscleParts.html

pl

That's the very rationale that prompted Ford to install deep-sump pans on every Thunderbolt and Light Weight Galaxie they built in 1964.

Cool!  Did you check the price list in the back of the Ford catalog?  $43.70 for the deep sump pan.   It looks baffled in the picture, but I can't tell for sure.  The Shelby one is certainly more elaborate with baffles and doors. The 2x4 MR dual plane intake was $115.85.   I know that was a lot more money back then, but that is still neat to think about.

pl

Was a lot of money. In 1964 I was making $2.50 an hour. In 1965 it was ( best I can remember ) $97.00 a month plus room, board, clothes, boots, rifle and lots of ammo.

[plovett]

They had deep sump pans way back when.  It's funny how we rediscover these things.

http://www.mustangtek.com/Library2/MuscleParts.html

pl

That's the very rationale that prompted Ford to install deep-sump pans on every Thunderbolt and Light Weight Galaxie they built in 1964.

Cool!  Did you check the price list in the back of the Ford catalog?  $43.70 for the deep sump pan.   It looks baffled in the picture, but I can't tell for sure.  The Shelby one is certainly more elaborate with baffles and doors. The 2x4 MR dual plane intake was $115.85.   I know that was a lot more money back then, but that is still neat to think about.

pl

Was a lot of money. In 1964 I was making $2.50 an hour. In 1965 it was ( best I can remember ) $97.00 a month plus room, board, clothes, boots, rifle and lots of ammo.

Yeah,  I didn't look up the ratio between then and now, but I bet it was around 10:1.  $1 back then equals roughly $10 now?

Here's a better pic of the pan.  And a link to the Ford Hi-Per Parts catalog.

pl

http://www.mustangtek.com/Library2/HiPerfParts.html

[427John]

It's funny how things keep circling back,I remember being told 40 years ago that even though the SO block was the hot shit you really only needed one if you were running a 500 mile race at 7,000 rpm.And I love the way some people have described the PSE SO kit as a solution looking for a problem.

[Henrysnephew]

A 1969 dollar is $7.17 today, so that oil pan was $313 in today's money and the intake was $832.  Randy M

[wsu0702]

My good friend Robert Sprowl put this info back together a while ago on the old net54 FE forum.  Skip down to "Part Three - Modifications".  Very good info IMHO.  http://www.fordfe.info/Forum/Oil.html

[475fetoploader]

Can we extrude hone? At least the initial passage from filter head to camshaft?

[GerryP]

Sure you can.  Extrude honing is rather expensive, but if you have the coin, then the sky's the limit.  Again, I'm not sure what all of this accomplishes.  It's not hard to find threads about how the valvetrain is being flooded with oil and how to restrict that, and at the same time conclude that FEs suffer from low or restricted oil flow that the oiling system must be fiddled with.  I guess that's a cognitive dissonance.

[Skeeter65]

I appreciate all the information you guys have provided. As far as the motor, it is a '67 390 that I picked up from a local salvage yard about 5 years ago and it came out of a 2 door '67 Galaxie 500. Anyway, I broke it down to the block last week and it appears it's never been bored but does have some wear. Since it likely needs to be bored anyway I am planning to do a 445 stroker and would like to do TFS heads if possible. It will be mostly street use but may hit the track a few times so it's not going to be an all out race motor by any means. That said, I will follow the advice given regarding the oil mods not really being needed for my intended purpose.