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Boosted, stock oil pan and millings high volume, any issues sucking pan dry?
Hey everyone.
About to put my engine back together. Its a forged 6.0 I've been running for years that I just had freshened up and a new cam and valve train.
Its built for about 20-22psi and put down 900whp with a less than ideal cam before.
My builder recommends I run 20w50 Valvoline and recommended I run the Millings 10296 High pressure high volume pump.
I haven't heard back from him yet on what spring to run. They give you two options with this pump. It comes with a red high pressure spring but they give you a blue low pressure option too.
Im running a stock ls1 f-body pan and over fill it one quart.
Anyone out there with a similar setup? What spring did you run? Should I just stick with the red that comes in it?
Did builder set bearing tolerances for 20W50? Do you have oil pressure fail safe setup? It seems many guys run additional qt to eliminate pan sucking too low on high volume setups.
I run 8qts in my pan and pressure will still drop. What do you use to log? You'll **** when you see the pressure drop with a standalone in the log (you won't see it with a stock cluster)
Rich, What do you think the root cause of failure was? Starvation due to low pressure or pan sucked dry? How did you resolve it?
Just got the engine tore down yesterday. Ironic thing was, we were talking at the dyno (before this happened) and someone else brought up Mellings with stock pans and said he killed 2 engines that way. I cringed when he said it knowing I had just put the melling in this engine. Couple pulls in and 0 oil pressure.
I ordered a new rod, having the crank polished this week and will throw the Melling pump in the trash and go back to a stock pump. Im guessing it was pumping the pan dry at high rpm because I had driven the car on the street a few times and never had any issues.
I wonder what application the HV is really needed? I would expect oil pressure to drop (like fuel pressure) if volume was not enough. Datalog should reveal the need. Thank again.
I always have great success with ported and shimmed factory pumps. I also port the oil pan passages to free up restriction there. This new engine going in is a little loose. It has tolerances in the 0.0025 to 0.0030 range so it will be interesting to see how it holds pressure and if I can get away with a 40 weight oil.
So this was on the dyno? Just playing devils advocate here but any chance this was not the oil pumps fault?
I mean there are a lot of people running mellings pumps out there. Not saying it wasn't the pump but this to me seems like a totally failure of the pump and not just it sucking the stock pan dry.
Originally Posted by Rich Halsey
Melling HV pump with the low pressure spring, 1 xtra qt oil on a stock pan=
Just happened this weekend on the dyno. Should mention, this is with the gm swap pan.
I was seeing 45-50+ lbs idling.
Stick with the 10295 or a stock ported pump unless you're running an engine with DOD lifters. One thing that can help from sucking the pan dry is installing restrictors into the pushrod tube holes.
So this was on the dyno? Just playing devils advocate here but any chance this was not the oil pumps fault?
I mean there are a lot of people running mellings pumps out there. Not saying it wasn't the pump but this to me seems like a totally failure of the pump and not just it sucking the stock pan dry.
The pump is fine still. The reason for the 0 pressure is because it spun a cam bearing also and the bearing walked completely out of the cam bore allowing the pump to run with no restriction.
Keep the 10296 pump......install the pan. No pressure drops whatsoever here.
Same dimensions as a factory F-Body pan? I wonder if that is any better than the factory pan with improved performance drop-in baffle. Thats the route I went, and I hope it helps with maintaining my pressure...I will be logging it with a transducer to make sure.
I don't have any extra room for that pan. I've read the 10296 flow like 15-18% more volume and pressure. It's hard to believe that's enough to suck a pan dry. Especially when a motor is built looser and needs a little more
The pump is fine still. The reason for the 0 pressure is because it spun a cam bearing also and the bearing walked completely out of the cam bore allowing the pump to run with no restriction.
What wt oil were you running? Cam bearing clearance?
What wt oil were you running? Cam bearing clearance?
15-30, Didn't check cam bearing clearance, but Im sure it was a little on the loose side with the typical ls cam bearing wear these things show and having 180,000+ miles on the block.
04-12-2017, 08:53 AM
Boosted, stock oil pan and millings high volume, any issues sucking pan dry? 
