Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 17:19:19 -0800 (PST) From: Mike West Subject: Full Flow Filters and Ford Hyd.Lifters The story, I'm still polishing and primping this old "H" series case for install in the van. The results are a case that has a good chance of never leaking anywhere. There are a lot of "anywhere"s on one of those cases. This weekend I rounded up the tools for a putting in the "full flow inlet port" in this thing. That's the 3/8" NPT on the left upper side for oil return. This is my first time so I'll describe the screw ups. First, I needed a 9/16 tap drill with a reduced shank to fit my drill. I'm doing this thing free hand as opposed to in a Bench Press set-up. Having no luck in that department, I went on to borrow this big drill from a guy with this huge chuck and even huger motor. There are three different holes you are drilling out in there. First is the boss face the plug sits in. Then the hole behind the plug that goes on into the galley and last the galley running across with 3 side galleys coming into it. The 3 pilot holes mentioned above are not in line with each other. After wasting a day looking for the damn drill bit, I was a little impatient and jumped right in with out using a wit. I should have used 2 smaller drills and worked my way up to the 9/16". Ideally the last 1/16" should have been reamed. The bottom line is I slightly boogered the diameter where the pipe thread goes. I'll have to use a sealer on the fitting. Behind the threads are a couple ridges that I'll have to grind out. Also the three oil passages inside need to be deburred and radiused. This 9/16" by 1-1/2" deep hole makes a nice little manifold for all the galleys to meet in. When threading the 3/8" NPT into the case, have your fitting that is going in there, with you. You don't want to go so deep with the thread that you bottom the fitting out. In my case, I'm using a 45 degree, so I also have to stop the threads so the barb points in the right direction. So that's the return line from the "full flow". Filter at least and probable extra oil cooler. Looking at the outlet end for the oil is at the pump. You put a cover plate with an outlet for the oil line going to the filter. The regular outlet in the pump is tapped and plugged. There's another book by Bill Fisher on "How to Hot-rod your engine" or what. It tells how to blue-print your oil pump. So naturally I had to do that. The faying surface of the case/pump was "screw-drivered" bad so I pulled all the studs out of the face and stoned about 1/16" off it to eliminate the gouges. I checked the inlet/outlet-case/pump galleys locations and the holes in the pump are so oversized it made no diff. if the pump sits in farther. I may have to gnaw a little off the pump drive shaft/cam slot but I don't think so. If I do, so what? I didn't want my pump fitting on your car anyway. So now I had to "flat-up" the case faying surface with the pump housing. Time for the coarse lapping compound. This oil pump fits the engine O2 snug so I loosened the case while I lapped the face. Once I'd done that I decided to take some polishing compound and lap the pump/case bore. The oil ports are such that the 2 case halves clamp around the ports. I spaced the case out with a .01" shim. (doubled over newspaper) I lapped till I got a good seal around the 2 ports, just a few swipes. We're into the "Grokking" thing now, I think. Me and this case, (either one) are on first name basis. The only thing sealing those ports to the pump are those mechanical fits. I'm surprised most of us have any oil pressure at all. At this point I do see a way to seal this pump housing with your favorite goo. Slather the stuff all around the housing like you didn't have good sense and jam it in there in the proper orientation. Now take off the cover plate and remove the gears. Reach in there with a q-tip or what and clean the galleys of excess goo. Put it back together and you're home. Now that I'm all puffy about my oil pump, I notice these sharp edged transitions from the galleys to the pump housing. "Well we'll just fix that"! Eliminate "turbulent flow" , which is pressure loss. Another ten bucks worth of grinding stones etc. I'd quit here but I said something about Ford lifters. So here's that story: "Once upon a time . . . . . . I was at the Machinists Supply house, I just gave this guy the body off a bug. I see this case has been line-bored etc. The cross holes in the lifter housings have been opened up and the housings them- selves have been bored out. Query? The lifter housings are bored out for a small-block ford hydraulic lifter. The X-holes have all been opened up to .302" (7.5mm) Stock holes look to be .240" (6mm). The only other mod for lifters was the center saddle of the cam-shaft has an oil groove all around and hole out the opposite side. This feeds all the oil to the right hand side of the case. This oil groove was opened up as large as possible, probably twice the size of original. The rest is the realative cost: Bore for lifters and open up oil passages: $ 60 . Lifters (8) $34 . He still has to pick up a hyd cam but one of the reasons he went this route was so he could get a non-stock grind. Assume a stock cam: $60 This is a pretty reasonable hyd lifter package. west