Well- going higher volume or higher pressure or both adds more load to the oil pump drive & camshaft gears and this of coarse consumes power from the engine.
I hear people say “50 HP LOSS!” But when i was running sbc hotrods I went from stock to hv/hp and never saw a 10hp loss iirc that was a 350. A good friend at same time tested his 427 bbc and saw 8hp loss. And we saw huge pressure increases- like an extra 40psi range.
Then after that we pulled apart the engines and did the rebuilds. There’s a lot that people could and should do to help when rebuilding.
Remember that it’s oil flowing through that helps. That 10,50,90 psi isn’t what helps. 90psi doesn’t withstand hundreds of pounds of force from the piston shoving down the cylinder. Its the oil film wedged between the bearing and the crank, or bearing and camshaft.
You open up the ports to flow better, to flow a higher volume of oil so that cooler oil is against it and carrying away the heat.
Much of the changes I been doing to 6.5 for years is what I learned to do from SBC gassers. Ed smith down in Arizona, Denny Williams of Skull Marine out here, Ed Pink… these 3 of are the guys more well known I learned from how to build engines from. A bit of impact from trading ideas with Gale banks & John Force and two of his guys… one who taught me how to do the nitropropane.
So I don’t leave the oiling systems stock. Stock does ok, most of the time so long as nothing goes haywire. But even a mostly stock engine that I am doing for myself of family- I am opening up the holes from cam feed journal to the cam bearings and cam journal to the main bearings. Of course the bearing holes get it also. Same for wrist pins.
Their larger holes means more oil flows through. That means the oil pump has to supply more- so higher volume. That load is a tiny bit harder on the cam to oilpump drive gears. That’s ok because I make a bleeder cut to feed more oil there too.
I don’t enlarge the oil squirters. But the increase in oil supply and higher pressure means more oil goes through that same size hole thanks to Boyles law. So now more oil gets up to the bottom of the piston for cooling & to the wrist pins.
An example-I drill the 3 middle main cam to main journals to bit G size. Then the bearing to size H which is 50 thou larger so oil cant push behind it and cause a spun bearing. I drill all 5 holes from cam journal to cam bearing same way. All 5 cam bearings can use better oiling. But the 3 mains in the middle have 2 rods they supply while two end mains only feed one connecting rods each. The real is already large than the front because of the way the rear main seal works.
Look in the pic and you’ll see main 1&2 and see the larger drilled hole. Both chamfered but not yet sanded smooth. Pic 2 shows I haven’t yet drilled the cam bearing feed, but will. You can also see I have done 1st stage of cleaning up the oil return passage of flashing and helping the ramping of that path.
I learned never work until way sore- so I stop and start again as needed. Work a bit too uncomfortable and slip up leads to recycling or inventing new cuss words.
But doing everything to really help more oil flow to and through the bearings- makes a big difference in engine life…especially when you forget to check oil level or sustained driving and the engine is running at its upper temperature for a long time.
Running very oil specifications is known as blueprinted. And it really helps so long as no sludge, no debris, no moisture gets thrown in the mix.
More middle of the specification is most common. It helps for a little more abused engine but oil pressure drops a bit. This is when increased volume & pressure helps even more. Now imagine that engine 180,000 miles down the road. The extra oil flow now really helps. Opening up the passages simply allows cooler & cleaner oil.
10 psi per thousand rpm is the rule of thumb for v8 engines. But we run MUCH dirtier oil, much higher compression, much more blow by, so many “experts” would say 80 psi is absolutely ridiculous if not stupid for an engine that will never see 5,000 rpm. I call BS. Fully stock 6.5 running 80psi=no problem imo.
I am by no means a wazoo engine builder. Chris, Nate, many others here have done excellent work and if they or others have different opinions, I say hear everyone out.
But to me- bumping up pump output 1 level is not a bad thing. Advantages outweigh negatives.
I plan to do pics before actually assembling my engine and will post it when done with each area.
