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I’ve been thinking of coming up with a better oil cooler adapter than the stock and aftermarket block style adapters that are on the market. They have small oil passages with tight 90 degree turns created by intersecting drilled passages. Oil lines, passages and fittings should always avoid sharp 90 degree turns.
The holes in the stock oil pan are just a hair smaller than what’s needed for a 3/8" pipe tap. By chamfering these holes, I was able to nicely tap threads into the oil pan.
I found these stainless elbows on Amazon. 3/8" NPT to 5/8" hose barb. They have a nice smooth radiused bore. A little narrow on the threaded end, I’ll open them up a bit on the drill press. 5/8" barb fits -10 AN lines. I’ll be using Aeroquip AQP Socketless push-on hose with clamps. They’ll have heat tubing on them.
Not trying to knock your idea, but this is something ive taken a great deal of time investigating.
Whats the id of the threaded portion on your elbow? I bet its pretty small and restrictive.
If you really want to get the flow up, use a block adapter that has built in bungs. Like this Earls piece. Then take your dremel w/ carbide tip, and radius the inside corners as best you can.
why built in bungs? Again the threaded adapters internal dia ends up being way smaller. For example improved racing’s adapter uses -8 threaded inserts. Yeah, they sell a -12 adapter to go with it, but its still a good bit smaller than the hole thats already there in the block. And even smaller still than earls built in -10 that maintains the same size hole as the block.
next you can check alignment with the adapter to block meetup, and port out any mismatch in the flowpath.
If your really concerned about oil flow, get a set of 6” and 12” long bits and radius all the corners you can reach inside the block and oil pan passages. You can also smooth up the front and rear crossover passages. Ive done both of these things to my blocks.
To get much better than this requires a different oil pan that eliminates the filter pad and run a remote filter.
The best ive seen eliminates the oil channel down the side of the block. Either by means of a dry sump external pump suppling direct to the rear block plug, or the oem pump supply coming out of the front block plug.
the LT blocks are better in this regard as the pump output doesn’t dogleg immediately, it has a straight shot down the side channel.
Not trying to knock your idea, but this is something ive taken a great deal of time investigating.
Whats the id of the threaded portion on your elbow? I bet its pretty small and restrictive. They're about the same as a 3/8" pipe-which equals the opening in a -10AN hose end fitting.
If you really want to get the flow up, use a block adapter that has built in bungs. Like this Earls piece. Then take your dremel w/ carbide tip, and radius the inside corners as best you can. The aftermarket adapters are expensive and the passages are created by intersecting drilled holes which create sharp 90 degree turns in the oil flow.
why built in bungs? Again the threaded adapters internal dia ends up being way smaller. For example improved racing’s adapter uses -8 threaded inserts. Yeah, they sell a -12 adapter to go with it, but its still a good bit smaller than the hole thats already there in the block. And even smaller still than earls built in -10 that maintains the same size hole as the block. -08AN bungs welded to the pan or a plate would be too close together to tighten fittings on to them. This is why aftermarket adapter plates like from ICT have -06 fittings.
next you can check alignment with the adapter to block meetup, and port out any mismatch in the flowpath.
If your really concerned about oil flow, get a set of 6” and 12” long bits and radius all the corners you can reach inside the block and oil pan passages. You can also smooth up the front and rear crossover passages. Ive done both of these things to my blocks. While cleaning up the stock oil pan's passages is a great idea, my idea was for an external way to get the oil out & back in with a minimum of sharp bends and restrictions.
To get much better than this requires a different oil pan that eliminates the filter pad and run a remote filter. Agreed. My Trans Am has a Moroso pan with -10AN fittings right on it. This simple work on a stock pan is for those who don't want to spend the money on an aftermarket pan.
The best ive seen eliminates the oil channel down the side of the block. Either by means of a dry sump external pump suppling direct to the rear block plug, or the oem pump supply coming out of the front block plug. Big dollar race engine stuff.
the LT blocks are better in this regard as the pump output doesn’t dogleg immediately, it has a straight shot down the side channel.
This is about gen3 pans and also work for gen4 pans.
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Eliminating the oil cooler adapter 
