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1st thing i see wrong is the stock windage trays look like a sheet of pliewood, and have barley any holes/ slots to actually help to get oil out of the tornado of oil and air surrounding the crank... 2nd dont know if anyone has done this before, but if your using lifter trays, there holding at least a half a quart of oil in them... heres what i did
1/8" holes, on the bottom side at the lowest point
Also i am still a strong beliver that any stroker with a stock tray is going to make more problems as theres more wind, closer too the tray and its simply going to hit it and come right back up
Ive never drilled trays and I will be brief and explain why. If they hold a half quart as you claim when full, then running a half quart over in oil would negate the oil thats holding in the trays. Once the trays are full they will spill over, so they can never hold more then a half quart.
Ive never drilled trays and I will be brief and explain why. If they hold a half quart as you claim when full, then running a half quart over in oil would negate the oil thats holding in the trays. Once the trays are full they will spill over, so they can never hold more then a half quart.
To further this thought; it's my belief that the engineers @ G.M. want that oil bath in the trays to cool and lubricate the roller as it gets no pressurized lubrication to the wheel.
They dont bath the roller.. there plenty oiled and yes it will flow over, but there will always be oil traped in them, untill you turn the car offand they slowly drain...as stated, link bars have no issues, i think the plastic trays were designed by a blind man
Theres galleys to lube the lifters... u dont need a bath on top, not to mention, if you look inside them there barley allowing oil onto the very top...of the lifter anyway, and dont forget the top dosnt leave the plastic, thats only a very small space for oil to gather, when the lifters all the way down there isnt much room in there
And the roller wheel is on the cam? How does the plunger lubricate the roller? This ? May be a cause of my ignorance, im not a lifter expert by any means
After some searching of the web, it appears there is alot of people doing this, but seems they use twice the holes and use 1/2"... i would call that over kill.. 1 1/8" hole is plenty for hot oil
Lets see if I can connect the dots for you............
back in 92/93 the GEN III engine program was nearly doomed as the aluminum blocks kept exploding apart on the dynos and the only way they continued to test designs was by using iron blocks and mounting high tech cameras in all sorts of areas to study what the hell was going on. Turns out that the individual cylinder bays were unable to inter breathe because of the new fully skirted main/pan design.
Getting back to your tray mod, trust me when I tell you that this engine design is one of the very best because these engineers were not blind or idiots. No design is perfect but since roller lifters solid/hydraulic have been around, the number 1 failure is the wheel and it's lack of proper lubrication. Aftermarket companies have created forced oiling to deal with high rpm high spring load aggressive cam type set ups. Isky has even eliminated the bearing wheel and gone to a bushing inside the wheel.
They know for sure that the tray holds oil and I believe that the small amount that will run down the edges helps the steel body to not tear up the aluminum block bore as well as run down the sides to help the roller wheel.
At high rpms there is considerable oil fly off and spray mist from the connecting rods swinging by but at low rpms/idle/ or an M6 car loafing down the freeway at 1400 rpms; those pooled up trays are creating longevity per the engineers original intended 250,000 mile parameters for the LS architecture.
I do understand the theory of once its filled it will allways overflow.. so add more oil.. but thay seems more like a bandaid too me, i think oil return would be best without the trays at all, like all the link bar set ups in almost ever high horsepower build..looking through the hole in the head it looks horrible for return, let alone most of it winds up in the tray....
Absolutely not. No way the engineer (or rather, team of) that designed the engine might know what it needs. How dare you suggest such a thing....
They made plenty of mistakes, this is one of the most ignorant comments ive herd.. the other guy said there design was so bad they couldnt use alluminium,
Anyway, looking at the pic i posted above, i would have to say the bottom of the tray ( where the oil would spill over) looks to be a bit on the tight side... so does it spill over the top? Because i would think it would just back up and wind up in the heads
06-23-2015, 11:15 PM
alot of complaints of oil dran back.. 
How dare you suggest such a thing.... 
