MILODON ROAD RACE OIL PAN PROBLEMS STROKER SB

Hello everyone. I'm building a 410 (360-040 stroker small block; car used mostly for competition road course and pylon racing, but also street/hwy driven. Hughes/SCAT all forged assembly with Eagle H-beam rods. Multiple problems:

1. Milodon windage tray, with their 4-stud kit, now installed, but had to shorten/cut the 4 studs by about 7/16"each so they would not hit the road race Milodon oil pan... at every (all 4) stud point.... OK... done.

2. Milodon windage tray needed MAJOR re-configuration to clear the H-beam rods (cap screws). ALL of the tray's openings needed to be cut/ground away, then re-shaped for windage capture/drainage, then multiple radius pounding with a ball-peen hammer on a wide open vice needed to be radius'd in to further clear the rotation of the rods/cap screws... spent an easy 10+ hours doing this... OK, done now... all rods/cap screws now clear with approximate 1/16"-1/8" clearances.

3. Milodon windage tray needed further opening and re-configuration for the Milodon road race oil pic-up tube.... OK... done now.

4. Milodon road race oil pan will not clear and fit properly over the Melling HV72 oil pump!!!... hits in lower corner of the pan. I've confirmed this is only the oil pump-to-pan interference (not the pick up). Without the oil pump, the pan fits onto the block perfectly; with the oil pump, it is off by about 3/16" from allowing all the pan to seat flatly to the block's rails (rear), as well as aligning with ALL the bolt holes. I've checked the rear oil pan depth vs my original factory pan... same. BUT, there is definite interference of the oil pump to the pan (visible marks of scratching). So, I've attempted to file away and re-radius the corner of the oil pump... helped a little. Next, spending time pounding that oil pan corner out... helped a little more, but still have to continue... hope I can make it to fit.

So, has anyone had similar above experiences with the setup that I have?

PS: I had called the Milodon Tech Line before I purchased the Windage tray and stud-kit (just the 4-studs they offer), asked if there was anything I should know about the overall assembly... "...Nope.. just put it all together." Surprise after surprise! Very disappointing from Milodon -- thought they were a quality company.

Hey Mitch, I have not encountered that problem, but would your build be OK with a std. volume oil pump? My machinist advised running a std. volume and just radius the mount area on the pump or main cap as necessary. His theory is that they put less heat in the oil and provide plenty of volume with proper oil control (pan), along with less windage due to less oil returning from the heads and it won't pump the pan dry as quickly if gravity impedes the free flow of return oil to the pan. This assumes your lubrication system is basically stock. Jobs for racers jump the schedule at this guys shop.

Anyway, that might get you the clearance for your pan if it fits with your plan.

I'm not a small block guy but I'm a big fan of standard oil pumps as long as you don't have a pressure issue. There is less stress on parts than a high volume. There's no point in a HV pump if most of the oil is going through the bypass.

There's no point in a HV pump if most of the oil is going through the bypass
This^^^
It's being aerated as well.
Without enough oil volume to gas out (tall towaer is best) small emulsion bubbles reduce the strength of the oil film at the journal by providing a compressible cushion.

The windage tray doesn't fit with the road race pan. The oil pump should fit but if it doesn't it doesn't. Milodon stuff is like Indy stuff, cut to fit after you buy it. Last SB we did took several hours to fit the Milodon parts together.

We did a 427 inch SB years ago with a Milodon road race pan. The windage tray needed to be heavily modified. Wasn't much left of it by the time it fit.

Mitch, what’s the part number of that pan, I’ve just installed what I think is the same without issue, the pickup needed a little massage to clear the rods/crank on the stroker, I used a Hughes girdle so it acts more like a scraper as such

Regarding pan and HV oil pump fit, I have exactly the same experience, although this is with stock pan, so this info is in the "for what it is worth" category.

I ran into clearance issue, attempted to deal with it by putting some dimples in the factory pan. That pan was really thick so I thought there would be enough room, alas as it turned out maybe too thick actually to make it work.

1) factory pan with oil pump clearance dimples - early stages


2) and here is the resulting crack


..so that put an end to this idea. Well, I re-grouped ha ha...and off I went looking for alternative oil pumps to see if I could eek out a little extra clearance.

Here is what I arrived at:


...and as tiny as it may seem, the recessed screw mounting pad of the oil pump cover along with the lower profile of the bolt head actually shaved off enough to make the pan fit work. It was probably about 1/4" clearance.

Not sure if you looked at alternative pump covers, but maybe that's a viable approach to get you that extra clearance?

Crash520 --

Milodon 360 road race oil pan is #31595
Milodon SB Mopar Windage tray #32230
Milodon 4-stud installation kit for their windage tray is #81151

You've said that you're using the Hughes main Girdle... I thought that girdle will not work with any windage tray.

Diplomat360 --

T/Anks for your reply.. seems we have the same issue. My stock factory 360 oil pan fits A-OK.

I'll be grinding the oil pump and, hopefully, that will help more... as well as dimpling the corner of the Milodon road race pan.

Also, as others have suggested, the installation of the NON-High Volume oil pump would probably clear and resolve the issue (being a shorter pump), but, I've always (past ~40 years) run/raced and rebuilt the SB engines only with the HV pump... been my preference and without any problems or issues. In fact, the engine that came out of the car (T/A 340) had been raced (AX/HSAX/HPDE) very hard by me for the past 30 years... it was a great running engine!... commonly seeing 6500-68--occasional 7000!... setting it aside now (although I'll be using the T/A heads... per class racing rules... ported and flowed).

I have pics on my cell phone of the windage tray, oil pump and pan, etc... figuring out how to post them...

I get you on the HV pump experience, no reason to mess with a successful program! Good luck getting it fit, and I enjoy the pictures!

Diplomat360 -- I couldn't get your pics/links to open... is there some special way to open them (I just tried clicking on but.. nothing).

I never could fit anything other than pumps with countersunk screws. This was with oem type pans.

I had all the same issues. It should come with a hammer in a kit. Here is my online rant if your interested with pics!
https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopa...68-notchback-build-thread.326897/page-16

Look at the bright side when you are all done fitting it it will leak at one off the bad welds.

Hey Mitch,



Ahh...sorry man, I'm hosting the pics on my local machine where I run a web server...this allows me to put up as big of a pic as needed. The challenge is that if I cycle the machine (maintenance re-boot, etc.) it will take 'em off-line, which is something I did this afternoon.

Try again please, looking at the thread right now my browser shows them in the post.

Mitch, your correct it won’t work, what I meant was I was using the girdle as a form of crank scraper as such

Greg

Diplomat360 -- pics still won't open.... I'm curios to see them.

K..250 -- T/Anks for the pics/link... You'll be shocked to see the pics of my results on modifying the windage tray...

we should talk sometime...

I got to worse than this with a big block , then just threw it away .


Tex

Ugghhh????

Well, let's see if attaching them works...I see them here, even after a forced page re-fresh (this completely re-fetches the page from the web server so that any local cache is purged, but anyways...)

Wow... those pics... the 5-bolt heads hitting the pan? Shouldn't be! What brand oil pump?

Hey Mitch,



Hmm...it's been a few years, but my logbooks says that was a SealedPower 224-4166V pump, which has the '72HV' tag indicating it's a high-volume pump, thus thicker pump body.