I was watching an episode of Engine Masters on our new Fire Stick TV thingy, its cool cause I can pick and choose what episodes I want to watch. They did dyno testing on a BBC with a stock pan, then with a Milodon pan with a windage tray, I wasnt so much interested in the power output, but more so in the oil pressure at higher rpm. With the stock pan, oil pressure dropped as rpm rose. With the Milodon pan, the windage, and subsequent foaming, was more controlled, and oil pressure rose with rpm as it should. This is the exact scenario I've been experiencing for years, around town, and down the track the oil pressure is fine. On the highway for more than a few miles, the pressure drops to a maximum at cruise of around 50/52 lbs, then accelerate from there and it drops to 42/45 lbs. Return to city driving, or come to a stop and go again, all is fine till it gets whipped up again. I havent really heard anybody else having this issue, or they never noticed. I give Frieburger, Steve Brule, and Dulcich kudos for watching and noting that.
I have never seen mine drop 10 lbs when accelerating in high gear. I have seen it drop about 2 lbs if I have the trans locked up in 4th gear and step on it some but will drop to 3rd gear if I push too hard. Does the same in 3rd gear locked up too but the drop is about 2-3 lbs. if that. I do know it drops some but only when trans is locked up. but if the trans is Not locked up the oil pressure starts to go up whether in 3rd or 4th gear when stepping on it. This is a 52 lbs. pressure at 3000 rpm in 3rd gear. I do not think the windage tray is in mine I think that longer oil pickup with my deep pan kept that from being installed back on. I think it would have been cut up to get back on so we went without it.
Its on there. On my last combo with the '78 block it didnt have provisions for one, but my current build with my original '71 block has the boss's for it. On my '78 block without the windage tray it was doing the same thing. Biggest thing is getting the oil sump as far away from the crank.
Is there any way you could get a pic or two of your pan? Im curious how far it hangs below your crossmember.
When I pull the engine again for install of the aluminum heads, Im going to see if extending the factory windage/baffle tray is feasable along with my modified oil pan.
Made this set up for the current build. I've not run it at the track so have no info on how well it works. Got the design from Nick Servo
Here is my setup, I have since welded a 1/2 spacer to the oil pan rails to get clearance for the windage tray. So the block girdle is 1" thick and the oil pan is 3/4" thick thats why the pan looks so shallow, plus I do not need to clear the oil pickup as I am sucking oil out of the bottom side of the pan with the belt driven pump:
Steve Reynolds - SRE - has the type of screen that I have in mine - then you just need to fit and weld.
