I overlooked mentioning this on my last post. The redesigned Milidon oil pump with the reshaped gearator is said to be significantly better at pumping more oil while using less power to do it. I used the factory cast iron top on mine.

Hard to tell because of the angles of the pics... trying to see if the two gears' wear patterns are noticeably different.

I've seen the Milodon pump "guts" before... but never saw any data to verify their claims about better flow w/ less effort. It ain't cheap, that's for sure.

That's a design they've been using for decades. I never heard it was better. In fact, there were numerous articles about oil drainback to the pan with this design on external oiling systems and a subsequent loss of prime on startup.

I called Milodon a few years back. They advertise that pump moves 19 GPM,so I asked if that was at idle or 7000 rpm. It was that was at a constant 3000 rpm. They also said @ 7000 rpm is was moving 24 GPM. Have been using one on my street driven brick for almost 30 years!

Since its driven by the cam its going half crank speed, so unless the engine revs to 14,000 the pump will never see 7000 rpm.

How does that compare to an OEM-type high volume pump? And at some point I have to believe more isn't better because the oil system simply can't move any more volume because of all the internal restrictions...

Its when you lose those restrictions that the HV pump comes into play. More bearing clearance, full time top end oiling, pressurized roller lifters, pushrod oiling, full roller rockers, etc.. The downside is if you're going o move more volume you damn well better have the volume to move. A HV pump will drain a stock big block or hemi/six pack pan in the quarter mile. Anything less than a seven quart pan and you're just beggin' for trouble.

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Its when you lose those restrictions that the HV pump comes into play. More bearing clearance, full time top end oiling, pressurized roller lifters, pushrod oiling, full roller rockers, etc.. The downside is if you're going o move more volume you damn well better have the volume to move. A HV pump will drain a stock big block or hemi/six pack pan in the quarter mile. Anything less than a seven quart pan and you're just beggin' for trouble. [/quote]
I used a Melling hi volume oil pump with a 1970/71 Mopar Hemi/6 pack 6 quart oil pan with Indy SR heads oiling the rockers full time with .0034 rod bearing clearances, .0042+ main bearing clearances in a 400 block with solid roller lifters with no lifter bushings, it would cross the 1/4 mile finish line at or close to 7000 RPM and not have any oil pressure problems until I let it get down one quart low down to the add mark at the races It would start to loose oil pressure after I let off about 100 to 200 feet past the finish line, if I tap the gas a little bit it would get the oil pressure back sooner than let it slow down in gear all the way to the turn off
It wouldn't loose oil pressure ever with the oil pan full up near the full mark with 6 quarts in those pans
I do build and use crankshaft scrapers on all my motors now

Had the intake off to check for wear and tear and noticed that the black on the coated gear was almost all gone with only minutes of running time from when I put it back in why now after 3 years? I called crane and they said that was black oxide from the hardening process and it will wear off and the gear will get shinny and it's fine. If it has a problem it'll get thinner like a bronze gear would.

Got any pics that show the cam gear teeth more clearly? I'm interested in seeing how sharp vs beveled the edges of the teeth are, since you're running that style of pump gear. I "think" they appear to have a noticeable bevel, based on my trying to your pics closely.

If it does start get thinner like a bronze gear wears "normally", that's what bothers me. Bronze particles floating in the oil until they get trapped in the filter bother me a He11uva lot less than the idea of steel (iron?) particles doing the same thing.

How much gap are you running between the top of the gear and the shaft collar? It looks excessive to me. I've found on my stuff that if there's an excessive amount of up and down free play, the drive gear can change position too much in relation to the cam gear and it contributes significantly to gear wear, especially on bronze gears.

Yes too much clearance on the shaft collar I hadn't corrected it when I went from bronze to steel. I plan to fix that. Brad no sharp edges on cam or gear. Had a friend who build's silver crown race engines look it over and when I asked him about it said I was nuts and the cam didn't have any wear on the teeth.