Looking good.
As an aside from someone else's advice, I also lightly polished the intake valley and opened up the drain holes to get the oil back to the pan faster as well as modifying the little cast dams to allow more oil to get to the cam chain.
I agreed with the concept and didn't think it would be detrimental, so it was worth a lash.
I also acknowledge that oil will really only get to chain when braking, as it will usually be forced to the back of the valley pan.

 

I don't think there's any "probably" about it! LOL!

No disrespect to Tim, but I think Jack Roush probably has as much experience with the 351C as anyone outside of Australia. Is that a stretch? Maybe, but only because he has transitioned to newer engine types.

Back to the point.

Tim - have you ever tried to restrict the driver's side lifter galley? Could you install the plug at the no.1 main, then drill it out to .313" diameter?

 

I had thought about those mods to get the oil back to the pan, as well as cleaning up some of the pretty rough corners in the passages. But, the thing I'm wondering most about is drilling the plug that goes in the driver's side (US) front gallery to provide a spray to the chain and gears. Any thoughts on that?

 

Yeah I looked at my motor and the line to the driver side gallery is basically impossible. Between the dizzy shaft and the timing gear, you'd pretty much have to go through the water jacket... The main thing that concerns me is longevity. If it's making 20 psi at idle at the oil pressure sender, you still probably wont have much left at the lifters for cyl #5 will you? It just seems like bad/uneven design to me and I'm a little OCD so it makes me want to fix it if my #1 lifters have 20psi at idle and the #5 have 5 psi. But I don't know much of anything yet so I'm probably just a stupid teenager

 

If you do Tim's mod's you should have 40 psi at idle. And that's at the rear of the block so #5 main will have that as well. And, there'll be plenty left over for the driver's side lifters.

 

Gary,

I would not drill out any holes for the timing chain. The front cam bearing needs to be .003" from the front of the block to limit flow to that area. Drilling a hole would only make the oiling system problems worse. The problems seem to be main and rod bearings, the cam bearings.

 

I'm not disagreeing, just seeking to understand. Are you saying that there isn't enough flow to allow a small stream via the end plug? Just trying to understand "make the oiling system problems worse".

And, how does the .003" dimension limit the flow? As I said, I'm seeking to understand.

 

Works for me obviously I have no clue what I'm talking about so I'll step back and lurk now

 

Don't lurk, join in. You'll be a lot more involved and learn much more quickly.

 

Gary,

If you make some modifications, such as Tim's, to get better pressure to the main bearings, to me that makes sense. To the bleed off some pressure, even if it's only 2-4 PSI, for increased oil to a timing chain, seems like an odd choice. A quality double roller chain instead of the factory Morse type and you should never ever have a problem anyway.

This is my understanding of the 335 series oiling issues.

Since it's not a "main priority" system, if everything is not just right, oiling to the mains suffers. One of the "best" fixes is to install lifter bore sleeves. These are the precise diameter they are supposed to be for minimal oil bleed off and they can have a correctly sized orifice for hydraulic or mechanical cam. I think this was the first "Ford" fix. Often production tolerancing isn't what it should be!

If you can keep the lifters from bleeding off too much pressure the system should be just fine. Add some oil control to the top end, most likely with roller rocker arms and small orifice pushrods, and you shouldn't have oil drain back issues either.

 

Two words, dry sump

 

they sell timing chain with roller instead of bushing/shim plate. Problem solved. Its a torrington roller type bearing behind the cam gear and help free up some friction! simple upgrade and can be done for the low low FEE$$. have a great day! Yes tim cam bearings are awesome and simple. Drill a hole little bigger and plug a hole!

 

Here is a picture of the backside of an example in case anyone is interested:





I too have seen in engine building literature to set the #1 bearing back from the face, measured using a feeler guage underneath a straight edge. Tom Monroe gives a .005-.020 figure in his book. However, the Durabond bearings that Tim sells say to install flush so an interesting point in all of this is what is the overall effect of either one way or the other.

 

I hear what's being said about the Torrington bearing, and I like that idea. And thanks for the pic, OB.

But, I'm confused about the set-back on the #1 bearing. But, since Tim's bearings say to install it flush that's what I'll do. Again, thanks for the pic, OB. But, I'll ask Tim about that when he calls to finalize my order. Thanks, guys!

 

Gary I'm not going to tell you a bearing is a bad idea, it's always better to have better bearings and it is an upgrade but the reasoning for it isn't quite sound. A bearing like that is a fantastic upgrade for a flat tappet camshaft, it's a minor upgrade and a minor risk for a roller camshaft. Flat tappet camshafts are sucked back hard into the block by the angle cut into the lobes to spin the lifters. This puts a high load on that bearing and makes a Torrington bearing there a very good idea. Roller camshafts have even lobes and thus are not sucked back into the block. Often even a extra "button" is put on the front of the cam to push it back into the block. You'll have to listen to your cam supplier on that. Cause of this however that bearing isn't under much stress at all and a Torrington bearing while generally always good does add a small level of risk. That risk is on the longevity of the bearing. Hard to figure with any certainty that it will last as long as the rest of the engine. When you pin down cam specifics I'd defer to the manufacture of the cam for this along with what material your distributor gear should be.

That said I'm 100% for drilling the small hole to lube the chain, and I wonder if anything can be done to help the distributor gear get more oil while were at it.


Edit; Cam bearings, this is a conversation to be had with the machine shop doing your block, they will be installing the bearings for you correct?