Hemi rods-bolts ARE bigger than 440 rods. Aren’t deeper trays going against the grain for oil issues (to far from crank)? A hall peen hammer will fix those marks in tray, I’d do that first.
The previous owner did just that except with a punch (first picture - you can see the scratch in the punch marks) The whole idea was to get rid of the tray with 2 gasket combo while I had things opened up to fix the leaking rear main seal issue. I did consider cutting notches in the plastic tray and I'm sure it would have worked OK but that also would have been a lot easier with the motor upside down on a stand vice installed in the car. JEGS had the stroker tray on sale and it was a decent deal, so I went that route. Best I could measure with the stroker tray was that I now had about 1/8" to 3/16" clearance. Not sure what the factory intended as far as rod/hardware clearance to the windage tray but think I'm OK with this arrangement. One thing I did notice about the damage on both trays was that it was more pronounced towards the rear of the motor - Evidently the crank centerline is not exactly parallel to the bottom rail?? Or more likely it may have been how the trays were manufactured?? The bigger issue I see is that the new plastic trays do not account for the extra depth you gain with a gasket. The plastic one-piece and the steel factory tray had identical heights when set up side by side.
Yes, this is a Hemi and not a 426 Wedge - good eye catching the cross-bolted main...
jim
