Any one interested in the oiling mods I did?

[Duane]

I combed through this thread, some good ideas and some I question.

The biggest question comes from the idea that the #4 main is starved as the oil prefers to fly past the feed hole....this is pretty dubious (as others already noted).

The desire of oil to go past #4 would pretty much be the same as it would for #2 and #3 if that were the case. Additionally, if there is 60PSI (or whatever) within the system, that pressure tends to exist independent of flow. In other words, if there is 60PSI at the #4 oil feed hole, oil is going to want to pursue the path of least resistance and go down that hole. It's not going to keep trucking past so that it can join the fight of maintaining 60PSI elsewhere. The oil will prefer to go straight past #4 if it's a no-pressure situation. But as soon as you pump more oil into the galleys than can escape, you begin building pressure and the oil is obligated to find someplace it can go to escape, even if it has to take a right angle turn.

Here's my question...I've read tons of theory, but no one has admitted to actually tapping a pressure gauge into #4 to read what's going on. Who has done it?

I also wonder...rather than letting the oil go to the mains then back up to the cam bearings (#2/#3/#4), what if you blocked it and fed those three bearings in the lifter valley using small tubing?

Somewhere on this forum I posted my experience about when I changed the dash pad on my Dodge Ram. During the reassemble I turned on the blower motor without any of the vent deflectors installed. As you know the blower motor is on the far passenger side. Upon turning on the blower to high speed, all the airflow ran right by the 1st passenger side vent and almost all of the air came out the drivers side. Too much speed and volume to make the turn to the first vent on the passenger side. As I reinstalled all the deflectors, the airflow evened out. Go figure. This same scenario is apparently what happens to #4 main only with a high volume pump.

 

[gregcon]

There are some similarities in your example but the big difference is one of pressure. The air in your Ram is not a 60PSI system, it's almost no PSI. As you noted, as soon as your imposed a little backpressure, the airflow evened out. The amount of backpressure you imposed was very small, too.

Imagine if you changed to a 35HP air blower so that it would put out 60PSI even with the driver's side wide open. The passenger side would blow all kinds of air. That's because there would be 60PSI in the system and the air would be seeking a place to escape. It's not going to 'work' to maintain 60PSI out the driver side when it can just blow out the passenger side.

 

[Duane]

There are some similarities in your example but the big difference is one of pressure. The air in your Ram is not a 60PSI system, it's almost no PSI. As you noted, as soon as your imposed a little backpressure, the airflow evened out. The amount of backpressure you imposed was very small, too.

Imagine if you changed to a 35HP air blower so that it would put out 60PSI even with the driver's side wide open. The passenger side would blow all kinds of air. That's because there would be 60PSI in the system and the air would be seeking a place to escape. It's not going to 'work' to maintain 60PSI out the driver side when it can just blow out the passenger side.

I disagree because you are focused on pressure. The issue with #4 main is only a problem with a high volume pump. The extra volume creates a speed issue. Even a pressurized system moves oil. If the rate of travel is to high, then it becomes possible not to efficiently make sharp turns. I beleive that is what my dash example shows.
Another example I will share with you is that I installed a shift kit in my 47re truck. The instruction said to drill certain passages to a range of size. I went on the larger side of the recommendation.
After the initial road test I though the shifts were too firm.
I called trans go to get a new separator plate from explaining that I wanted to reduce the size of those holes to soften the shift.
There answer to me was that doing that would reduce the pressure at the clutch pack. Explain that when there would have been no system pressure change. Explain how the boost vale in these trans
Increase lockup pressure to a higher amount than system pressure.
I had a pressure gauge on my trans. System pressure was around 90 psi. Upon lockup the gauge goes to 135 psi with system pressure at 90. It just is not that simple imho.

 

[gregcon]

If the problem only exists with HV oil pumps, the answer is to never use an HV oil pump.

Velocity and volume are two separate things. They can coincide but they don't have to. It's just not logical to state the oil won't go down a passage if you increase the velocity through the galley a little. Keep in mind the increase - if there is one - is not going to be a big percentage.

But, why would velocity increase? The pump capacity goes up, but the place it's pumping oil is not changing. The galley and crank and rods etc. all stay the same. So if you increase the pump capacity (and not the PSI) that extra volume will most likely be manifested as bypass....it'll return to the pan. At a given PSI, RPM, temperature, etc. the engine oil passages are going to 'consume' the same amount of oil. If you want more oil you're gonna have to raise the PSI or open the passages.

 

[Duane]

If the problem only exists with HV oil pumps, the answer is to never use an HV oil pump.

Velocity and volume are two separate things. They can coincide but they don't have to. It's just not logical to state the oil won't go down a passage if you increase the velocity through the galley a little. Keep in mind the increase - if there is one - is not going to be a big percentage.

But, why would velocity increase? The pump capacity goes up, but the place it's pumping oil is not changing. The galley and crank and rods etc. all stay the same. So if you increase the pump capacity (and not the PSI) that extra volume will most likely be manifested as bypass....it'll return to the pan. At a given PSI, RPM, temperature, etc. the engine oil passages are going to 'consume' the same amount of oil. If you want more oil you're gonna have to raise the PSI or open the passages.

Well I beleive the answer to your velocity question can best be answered by looking at the basic recommendations from Chrysler and or Larry Athertons recommendations. The Chrysler recommendation is to cut the flow to all the lifters and to plug the end of the passenger galley. This reduces the amount of system leakage and therefore slows the oil speed effectively increasing
The pressure at the bearings.
The Larry Atherton crossover tube was designed with wet lifters in mind. But because of the way the oil travels to the drivers side combined with the leakage at the lifters and again with a high volume pump to offset all that leakage, you end up with a speed issue at number four main.
The crossover tube if done correctly, is designed to create a big leak or diversion just before number four main so that the speed of the oil is now slower as it passes by number four, allowing it to make the turn.
As you said in your previous answer, the bearings and rods consume oil, they leak. That is why an engine oil system is not the same as say your sealed brake system. It is not closed.

 

[yellow rose]

Well I beleive the answer to your velocity question can best be answered by looking at the basic recommendations from Chrysler and or Larry Athertons recommendations. The Chrysler recommendation is to cut the flow to all the lifters and to plug the end of the passenger galley. This reduces the amount of system leakage and therefore slows the oil speed effectively increasing
The pressure at the bearings.
The Larry Atherton crossover tube was designed with wet lifters in mind. But because of the way the oil travels to the drivers side combined with the leakage at the lifters and again with a high volume pump to offset all that leakage, you end up with a speed issue at number four main.
The crossover tube if done correctly, is designed to create a big leak or diversion just before number four main so that the speed of the oil is now slower as it passes by number four, allowing it to make the turn.
As you said in your previous answer, the bearings and rods consume oil, they leak. That is why an engine oil system is not the same as say your sealed brake system. It is not closed.

If by wet lifters you mean hydraulic lifters then maybe the crossover works. Since most hydraulics have a real RPM limit of 6500 there is no reason to have any issues.

I have yet to see any, as in not one single incidence of main bearings not getting oil. Ever. And I’ve knocked the rods out so many times I can no longer count it. And never once was a main bearing out of oil.

That’s the number one point to show it’s not a velocity issue. It can’t be. If the mains look fine and the rods are hanging out of the block, the mains got the oil and the rods didn’t. The mains oil first.

 

[gregcon]

With all the decades of talk about lifter bores leaking oil, I wonder why no one has ever sealed them. It seems you could o-ring them and that would last for at least a few races. I'll bet there are linear shaft seals out there that would be even better.

I also wonder why no one has said a word about improving the feed passages to the main off the galley. YR's method of feeding through the main caps addresses this by eliminating it, but if in fact the oil refuses to take a right turn at #4 (I don't believe that, but for the same of the argument) the crude 90 degree-drilled-hole-with-sharp-edges could be massaged or otherwise worked to encourage better feed.

 

[rumblefish360]

the crude 90 degree-drilled-hole-with-sharp-edges could be massaged or otherwise worked to encourage better feed.

That’s what I was thinking. If it is a 90* turn, (and it’s actually a bad thing at 7500+ RPM’s, then, if possible, massage the corners of the passage. IDK. The bigger main feeds can get done this way like Guitar show.

Sorry, more of an observer and reader at this point. I haven’t been there myself.

 

[yellow rose]

With all the decades of talk about lifter bores leaking oil, I wonder why no one has ever sealed them. It seems you could o-ring them and that would last for at least a few races. I'll bet there are linear shaft seals out there that would be even better.

I also wonder why no one has said a word about improving the feed passages to the main off the galley. YR's method of feeding through the main caps addresses this by eliminating it, but if in fact the oil refuses to take a right turn at #4 (I don't believe that, but for the same of the argument) the crude 90 degree-drilled-hole-with-sharp-edges could be massaged or otherwise worked to encourage better feed.

Funny you mention that. A local guy to me and a very good friend of the guy I worked for stopped by the shop one night after I’d gone home, and he saw my junk on the stand as I was mocking it up.

I didn’t know this and the next day he went to lunch with us. He started telling me back in the early 1970’s they were having rod bearing issues, and Chrysler gave him some money to try and find a cause and a cure. I suppose others were given money too because it is an issue, but Jim was a sharp cat, a multi time National Record holder in NHRA and AHRA so he had some whiskers.

Anyway, he tells me they discovered the issue was the sharp corners where the feed to the mains was drilled into the main oil gallery. They made some kind of mock up so they could watch how oil flowed over holes like that, found text books on fluid dynamics...spent some real time researching the issue and trying to learn the dynamics of the problem.

So he says once we figured out that those sharp corners were the issue, we had some 10 inch shank carbide burrs made up. There were several different burrs, with slightly different shapes and three different sizes IIRC, so they could get on there and put a chamfer as best they could on the square edges.


So I’m thinking WTF?? If Chrysler was paying for R&D on this issue and this was cute, why wasn’t a tech bulletin sent out or something. So I asked him if a tech bulletin was ever released on his findings and I’ll never forget his answer. He said “oh hell no...it didn’t make a pinch of **** difference”.


A few days later he stopped by with the burrs. Interesting stuff. But he said those square corners didn’t matter.

 

[rumblefish360]

So chamfering the galley & passages is moot?

 

[yellow rose]

So chamfering the galley & passages is moot?

Yep. When my dads engineering buddy stopped by to look at the oiling system and my injection plumbing I told him about what Jim had said.

And Larry said that the size of the passages feeding the mains and rods was bigger that the leak they need to be by some factor I no longer remember.

The upshot was when you are feeding a .0032 bearing clearance with a .287ish passage under even 60 PSI the plumbing was about a bottom priority.

Larry also emphasized keeping the pressure up, not lowering it, because I was considering it. His answer for that was the oil timing is so far off that lowering the pressure will reduce the ability of the oil to get out to the bearing under the load the cavity is seeing.


Most of it was over my head, but when I went back to the dyno with the system set up so I could adjust the pressure externally, everyone was baffled when 100 psi made more power than 80. Some of that was valve train related for sure. But the bearings never looked better after 30 pulls on the dyno with that high pressure. And that was with the W5 heads and we were pulling to 8800 that day.

 

[Duane]

With all the decades of talk about lifter bores leaking oil, I wonder why no one has ever sealed them. It seems you could o-ring them and that would last for at least a few races. I'll bet there are linear shaft seals out there that would be even better.

I also wonder why no one has said a word about improving the feed passages to the main off the galley. YR's method of feeding through the main caps addresses this by eliminating it, but if in fact the oil refuses to take a right turn at #4 (I don't believe that, but for the same of the argument) the crude 90 degree-drilled-hole-with-sharp-edges could be massaged or otherwise worked to encourage better feed.

Your post #325. You are drilling an r3 block that came with sealed lifter bores are you not? Chrysler is that confident that they saved you the step of having to tube the block or bush the bores.

 

[Duane]

Funny you mention that. A local guy to me and a very good friend of the guy I worked for stopped by the shop one night after I’d gone home, and he saw my junk on the stand as I was mocking it up.

I didn’t know this and the next day he went to lunch with us. He started telling me back in the early 1970’s they were having rod bearing issues, and Chrysler gave him some money to try and find a cause and a cure. I suppose others were given money too because it is an issue, but Jim was a sharp cat, a multi time National Record holder in NHRA and AHRA so he had some whiskers.

Anyway, he tells me they discovered the issue was the sharp corners where the feed to the mains was drilled into the main oil gallery. They made some kind of mock up so they could watch how oil flowed over holes like that, found text books on fluid dynamics...spent some real time researching the issue and trying to learn the dynamics of the problem.

So he says once we figured out that those sharp corners were the issue, we had some 10 inch shank carbide burrs made up. There were several different burrs, with slightly different shapes and three different sizes IIRC, so they could get on there and put a chamfer as best they could on the square edges.


So I’m thinking WTF?? If Chrysler was paying for R&D on this issue and this was cute, why wasn’t a tech bulletin sent out or something. So I asked him if a tech bulletin was ever released on his findings and I’ll never forget his answer. He said “oh hell no...it didn’t make a pinch of **** difference”.


A few days later he stopped by with the burrs. Interesting stuff. But he said those square corners didn’t matter.

It won't make any difference because it's still a speed issue.
Now Sanborn imho had the right idea with front oiling the galley.
Two opposing forces would cancel each other out and slow if not stop the speed leaving the oil in the galley nowhere to go but down to the mains without high velocity.

 

[Duane]

That’s what I was thinking. If it is a 90* turn, (and it’s actually a bad thing at 7500+ RPM’s, then, if possible, massage the corners of the passage. IDK. The bigger main feeds can get done this way like Guitar show.

Sorry, more of an observer and reader at this point. I haven’t been there myself.

Chrysler does tell you to open up the size of all the passages.

 

[Duane]

With all the decades of talk about lifter bores leaking oil, I wonder why no one has ever sealed them. It seems you could o-ring them and that would last for at least a few races. I'll bet there are linear shaft seals out there that would be even better.

I also wonder why no one has said a word about improving the feed passages to the main off the galley. YR's method of feeding through the main caps addresses this by eliminating it, but if in fact the oil refuses to take a right turn at #4 (I don't believe that, but for the same of the argument) the crude 90 degree-drilled-hole-with-sharp-edges could be massaged or otherwise worked to encourage better feed.

That was first recommended many years ago by Ed Hamburger I believe. It is recommended to open up all passages in the block leading to the galley to 1/2 inch and the passages from the galley to mains to 5/16.

 

[Duane]

If by wet lifters you mean hydraulic lifters then maybe the crossover works. Since most hydraulics have a real RPM limit of 6500 there is no reason to have any issues.

I have yet to see any, as in not one single incidence of main bearings not getting oil. Ever. And I’ve knocked the rods out so many times I can no longer count it. And never once was a main bearing out of oil.

That’s the number one point to show it’s not a velocity issue. It can’t be. If the mains look fine and the rods are hanging out of the block, the mains got the oil and the rods didn’t. The mains oil first.

I lost 2&4 main bearings within 40 runs on my old motor due to excessive cam bearing leakage with 70psi pressure all the time.
I learned the hard way that cam bearings have to be restricted or you starve the mains. Number 4 main and number 2 feed the rockers. The block was tubed and plugged and still failed those two mains, but the rockers and cam bearing looked beautiful lol.

 

[gregcon]

The block is an R3 which luckily does not need tubed lifter galleys. But, when you use the R3 with any of the 'higher end' heads (like W7/8/9 series) they require pushrod oiling and therefore the lifter bores have to be drilled. If I didn't drill them, there would be no path for oil to the rockers/valves. That said, I only drilled them to .046" which is far less than the OEM type block open galley.

 

[gregcon]

I don't think double feeding the right galley is going to beneficial in terms of slowing the oil down...I think the benefit is anytime you pressure up a circuit in a loop rather than from one end you gain all sorts of pressure drop and distribution benefits.

 

[Duane]

I don't think double feeding the right galley is going to beneficial in terms of slowing the oil down...I think the benefit is anytime you pressure up a circuit in a loop rather than from one end you gain all sorts of pressure drop and distribution benefits.

And distribution is exactly the problem. You can debate which way is the best way, the yellow rose post is radically redistributed but he claims it works and I have seen old fueled engines of the past that oiled that way through the caps.
IMHO the r3 block was cast with no oil to lifters because Chrysler is confident in that recommendation. I usually tube my blocks as well but I too have gone with a .030 oil hole, but not for pushrod oiling, but for bushed lifter axle oiling. I am oiling my rockers the usual way but the feed is now taken from the main galley instead of the cam bearings.

 

[yellow rose]

I lost 2&4 main bearings within 40 runs on my old motor due to excessive cam bearing leakage with 70psi pressure all the time.
I learned the hard way that cam bearings have to be restricted or you starve the mains. Number 4 main and number 2 feed the rockers. The block was tubed and plugged and still failed those two mains, but the rockers and cam bearing looked beautiful lol.

Ok, failing a main is a totally different issue than rod bearing failures while the mains are like new.

And I’m not suggesting to not restrict oil to the cam bearings. I think in my long post in the other thread I mentioned that, and if I didn’t I should have.

I usually use an .080 restriction in all of them and then I make sure that the cam journal on 2 and 4 are grooved, or I use a .060 in 1 and 3 and IIRC about .100 on 2 and 4 without a groove in the 2 and 4 cam journals.

I prefer the groove in the cam journal.

 

[yellow rose]

I don't think double feeding the right galley is going to beneficial in terms of slowing the oil down...I think the benefit is anytime you pressure up a circuit in a loop rather than from one end you gain all sorts of pressure drop and distribution benefits.

And distribution is exactly the problem. You can debate which way is the best way, the yellow rose post is radically redistributed but he claims it works and I have seen old fueled engines of the past that oiled that way through the caps.
IMHO the r3 block was cast with no oil to lifters because Chrysler is confident in that recommendation. I usually tube my blocks as well but I too have gone with a .030 oil hole, but not for pushrod oiling, but for bushed lifter axle oiling. I am oiling my rockers the usual way but the feed is now taken from the main galley instead of the cam bearings.

Seen it through the caps too and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t correct the oil timing.

 

[yellow rose]

I don't think double feeding the right galley is going to beneficial in terms of slowing the oil down...I think the benefit is anytime you pressure up a circuit in a loop rather than from one end you gain all sorts of pressure drop and distribution benefits.

And when you feed to columns of fluid from opposite directions you get the real possibility of pressure with no flow, or drastically reduced flow but still having pressure.

BTDT and the first thing I changed on the system I had did exactly that. You shouldn’t have two columns of fluid running into each other.

 

[Duane]

And when you feed to columns of fluid from opposite directions you get the real possibility of pressure with no flow, or drastically reduced flow but still having pressure.

BTDT and the first thing I changed on the system I had did exactly that. You shouldn’t have two columns of fluid running into each other.

Yellow rose I respect you and your knowledge but you need to think about this post you wrote. The brake system in your car is a sealed system with no flow. Two opposing columns of oil if pressurized has to go to the only place where leakage is available, the bearings.
The only place where there would be little flow is in the galley itself, which ideal. Sanborn used front oiling successfully and so did a friend of Pittsburg racer who posted about this issue extensively.
Cannot remember his name. He claimed he could not keep the motor together until he front oiled, and directed most of the oil away from lifters and cam bearings. Always more than 1 way to skin a cat.

 

[yellow rose]

Yellow rose I respect you and your knowledge but you need to think about this post you wrote. The brake system in your car is a sealed system with no flow. Two opposing columns of oil if pressurized has to go to the only place where leakage is available, the bearings.
The only place where there would be little flow is in the galley itself, which ideal. Sanborn used front oiling successfully and so did a friend of Pittsburg racer who posted about this issue extensively.
Cannot remember his name. He claimed he could not keep the motor together until he front oiled, and directed most of the oil away from lifters and cam bearings. Always more than 1 way to skin a cat.

You can make a test fixture to see the issue. A clear piece of tubing...1/2 inch will do and I’d use 2 or 3 tubes tied into the main tube so it looks just like how the main bearing feeds go into the main oil gallery. You’d need to restrict the down tubes a bit...maybe .312 max but I use .287 but something in that size.

Two small pumps, each one plumbed to an end of the 1/2 inch tube with regulators on them and something the fluid can discharge into.

You could use water. That’s cheap, easy and safe. With two separate small tanks, you could use food cooling in one tank to make it easier to see which column is doing what.

Then just turn it on and watch what the fluid does. What happened when both columns have the same pressure (I forgot to mention you need pressure gauges on both sides to see what the pressures are) and what happens when one column has more pressure than the other.

You can have pressure and no flow (or close to zero flow) with any fluid system. I learned it trying to run 5/8 fuel lines from the pump to the regulators. The weight of the fuel in the bigger line would literally stall at the launch. But I still had pressure at the gauge. I ended up with 3 gauges in the system. It was hard to watch them all at the same time, but you could see the pressure never change. But it went lean at the hit.

With a 5/8 fuel line from the pump it took about 35 psi of line pressure to stop that. That’s when we developed the bypass system. When all the smart people looked at it, they laughed. I’m betting most of them now use a bypass system of some sort.

Also, I’m not sure I understand your brake system analogy. Where in the brake system to you have to columns of fluid coming at each other. I can’t picture that in head.

And I agree there is more than one way to skin a cat and they can all work. If you can get oil to the rods at 8500 without correcting the oil timing then that’s all that matters. As long as the carnage stops it doesn’t matter how you do it.

 

[gregcon]

Flow occurs only because of pressure. No pressure, no flow. A glass of water has lots of flow potential, but no pressure, so it just sits there.

If you pressurize the galley, the resultant pressure causes the oil to flow into all the passages and cracks we want it to go to. If you pressurize it from both ends, it still will go into those areas but the pressure is better supported and presumably more even across the galley.

This concept is very common and popular in EFI fuel systems. A good system running 45-60PSI won't have the last injector hanging out at the end of the line....it is plumbed in a loop so that there is no end of line injector.

We want oil flow in the oil passages that feed off the galley. The galley serves as a manifold, or distribution block, if you will. The flow in the galley is only a byproduct of the fact that when oil exits the passages, it has to be replaced by more oil. A big galley feeding smaller sized passages is what we want - and it's what we have, more or less. The better supported the pressure is in the galley, the better we can assure good oil flow down the passages. A double-end fed galley will have a better supported pressure, all else being equal.