Any one interested in the oiling mods I did?
The reason you oil up the left side is...manifold...lol.
1) You (me) need to feed the pushrods/rockers. That is a must on a W7+ headed engine.
2) You can feed #1 off of the left side as above. As I said above, a really balanced oil system would feed another main (maybe #3) off the left galley, too. Feeding the #1 off the left really helps unload the right side galley by a big percentage.
3) A while back, an Aussie on this thread posted something I've always done, and agreed with - even on a solid lifter engine, it's a good practice to feed some oil to the lifter bore. High loads, high speeds go well with a little pressure fed oil. Way better than counting on 'drip' oiling alone.
4) The lifers I have are Crane Ultra and they have pin oiling which comes from the pressure in the lifter galley. I positioned my lifter bore oil holes so the oil hole in the lifter body aligns during the time the lifter is on the base circle.
On windage, that is another topic that has been on the back of my mind. We're improving that by reducing cam oiling and lifter bore leakage. Bu I have to wonder...all this extra oil we're sending to the mains, and rods especially, could be more feed for windage issues. I guess it could be argued that the rods and main are gonna leak the same either way and we're just making sure they never lack oil.
LOL I with you on the pushrod oiling and needing oil over there. For your block the holes you drilled will certainly feed the rockers and not be much of an issue concerning feeding the bearings.
There aren’t many ways to get oil to the rockers without major surgery. It either had to come through the factory passages or you have to get it there externally.
I tried external oiling the rockers and not only was it a giant PITA, it didn’t help anything.
For the rest of us stuck with the OE system (unlike your block that has no oil to the lifters unless you drill it) either tubing the gallery or bushing the lifter bores is still the best fix to control the oil at the lifters.
In fact, if I was going to use hydraulic lifters (I don’t know why I would, but maybe someone wants them) or you are going to pushrod oil the rockers (which I don’t care for IF you have the option to oil the rockers up from the mains) I would tube BOTH galleries and just drill a very small hole like you did in the tube where it breaks through the lifter bore.
No reason why you can’t tube both sides and control the oil getting to the lifters. You just have to remember to drill through the tube from the number 1 main to get oil up there.
I don’t use a drill to open up the block for the tube. I use a core drill or reamer. I also stopped sizing the hole for a press fit on the tube.
It can’t slide in there like socks on a rooster, but you shouldn’t have to beat the tube in there either. If you have .0005 press to .002ish clearance you’re golden. Once you peen the tube it ain’t going anywhere. If it does, the destruction was catastrophic and no amount of press would help that!
The nominal tube size is 5/8 but the last tube I bought was actually .6265 so a thou and a half over nominal. Most of the tube I’ve used half a thou to a thou over nominal.
So I use a reamer that is .626 and run it. Much easier than pressing that tube in there.
I’m sure you know most tubing isn’t straight, and copper is pretty soft so it’s easy to work with. I’ve seen it done with thin wall stainless and I think
@pittsburghracer did it with mild steel tubing here not long ago...maybe he did it with stainless or maybe I’m mixing up some info.
At any rate if you need to tube the block most guys can do it at home.