lifter and oil pressure questions

[rritchey]

Rick,

As you said, there are as many "correct" ways to set up a motor as there are motor builders. I usually set my clearances at .003" for both rod and main bearings. This is my standard clearance for a "Street" motor. If I know it is going to be run really hard, I'll go .0032" or .0033". Aside from reasons I mentioned in my earlier post about oil flow and such, how can I be sure that motor is never going to be run hard? I've yet to meet anybody who can completely resist the urge to flog it now and then, and if the guy goes over the deep end he won't have to worry. My .003" clearance is right in the middle of the acceptable range that you posted for cranks, and only .0001" more than the upper value for rods so I still feel very comfortable. I've built lots of FE's over the years and they all seem to be fine as I have never had any return to me for oiling problems. I did have a 427 recently that ate a cam lobe, I posted about it last week - but that is the only one.

The coatings are good to use, but I leave things like that up to the customer, after explaining what the benefits are. Again, the way I see it, these motors were built with plain old cast pistons (most of them anyway) and plain old cast rings and it was not uncommon for them to go well past 100,000+ miles and still be running strong (with the un-modified factory oil holes...GASP!!!). I'm not saying I'm against using modern technology or improving where we can, just that for most engines it is easy to go overboard. If you buy good pistons to start with, they are usually coated or empregnated with something to reduce wear anyway.

I agree the motor does not have uniform pressure throughout, the guage is just what the name implies, a guage. It is just an indicator of what is going on.

Cracker, those are nice dyno numbers - why don't you share with us what you used?