So I reached out to a friend of mine and asked him what his thoughts were on this. This comes from one of the leading Cup engine builders in the country. Not at liberty to share who...sorry, but good read.
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Looking back on it all, I think depression really didnt create the wrist pin issue, just exposed it with better scavenging. The depression, or lack of atmosphere, makes splash oiling slightly less effective, as it decreases it's resistance to movement. When we first started down the depression road, we pulled the wrist pins out of the piston, and blamed it on lack of oil to them. Such may have been the case slightly, as the crankcase was being better evacuated, so there was less left in the pan flying around. That, and the less resistance/effectiveness of the splash may have caused a little of the problem. But we opened up clearance, and then pressure fed them to try and help. Nothing eliminated the problem until we went to stiffer pins. Once we got that under control, it is surprising how little they need really. We spray the bottom of the piston, but there is only. 005 clearance between the pin towers and the rod (.0025 per side) and we run no oilers to the pin via the ring groove. We are higher in depression than we have ever been, and oil them less also. Which kinda points to the story of how we got here, and that it was really just weak pins all along, and we were just covering it up with lots of oil and big clearances.