Ford's 335 Series engines use a bit different oiling system than most other engines, and consequently many have low oil pressure - especially at idle. In fact, both Rusty, after its rebuild, and Dad's engine, before its rebuild, had a hot-idle oil pressure of about 10 psi. Fortunately, Cleveland engine guru Tim Meyers has a solution for that.
This diagram of Tim's shows what the original flow was like and what needs to be done to fix it:
This diagram of Tim's shows what the original flow was like and what needs to be done to fix it:
In words:
- Drill the feed from #1 main toward the passenger's side gallery out to 7/16", tap it 1/4" NPT, and insert a plug
- Drill the passage from #1 main toward, but not to, the cam bearing out to 5/16"
- Install Tim's special cam bearings according to the directions that come with them.
If you are like me and want to see how what you are doing fits into the overall oiling system picture, here's my rendition:
Here's the pipe plug after I drilled and tapped the #1 main in Dad's engine:
And here's a picture of me drilling out the passage going toward (not to!) the cam bearings:
But, if you are like me and can't let "well enough" alone, then I believe there are a couple more things that can easily be done to help the engine's elixir of life flow. First up is to modify the oil filter adapter. Here's a picture of three of them, with a new one on the right, the one I pulled out of Dad's engine in the middle and sporting dings from the Vise Grips (red arrow), and the modified one on the left. Since this is the view the oil flowing out of the filter will see, a little bit of rounding of the opening will allow the oil to flow more easily.
Then there's the nasty corner below (above in reality) the adapter which the oil has to get past. In my estimation this is going to cause turbulence and impede the flow.
So, I blended that edge like this. And, as you can see, I also blended the incoming hole so the oil can more easily make that transition.
So, does it work? Well, I haven't gotten the engine built yet so I can't tell you first hand. But, I do know that Tim's mod's work well as he does them to all the engines he builds and has had very good luck with them.
As for my mod's, obviously I don't know about them either. However, I did similar mod's on the oiling system of a "French" engine and the results were impressive. The oil pressure gauge worked just like a tach, and if you blipped the throttle the oil pressure gauge would twitch with it.