I know Tony(used to live up there) and he should have the file on it and be able to give you the answer you want.

 

"O" The Kendall GT-1 20-50 is a good oil to try. I ran it in my sprint cars for years and never a brg failure and ran it a bunch over 260* WT when the radiator got full of dirt from the other cars. The Fram filter they use in Nascar is a good one to look into.(don't remember the number)
I believe if you can't get the pressure to do right with an oil change you may have to get Clay Smith Cams or someone to build you a blueprinted pump that will keep up with the clearances,which is not a big deal about $110.00 and it bolts on.

 

Never run a filter that has no bypass valve in it. If you forget, you are asking for problems.

 

Tony is one hell of a engine builder. I would ask if they have the clearances and what oil weight and brand they recomend before I would take any advice from here. I'm not the guy to tell you what oil works best for a BES engine, they setup for what they like and what they like to run.

Bret

 

Switch to a K@N filter. They flow better than most out there but still filter pretty well. The other option that flows and filters well for the price is the Purolator Premium Plus filter, NOT the PureOne. It also looks like you need some heaiery oil.

But really you should park the car and rev the engine up there to see what the oil pressure does. If it starts going down while not moving, you definitely have some serious oiling issues to fix, hopefully something simple like the pickup not being far enough down, but even if it holds constant pressure, I still wouldn't rule out anything in the oiling system. A 30-40 psi drop in pressure is alot, and would be hard to believe it's just from loose bearings.

Jason

 

Thanks again to everyone. Calling BES is on my to do list. Ill post back and let you know what they say.

I response to the above post, pressure does NOT drop unless the car has a load on it.

EDIT: Just off the phone with BES. Who ever I talked to initially transferred me directly to Tony.

He pretty much was scratching his head for ideas too. The bearing specs he said were .025 to .030 as said by people here.

His suggestion was to actually run about 2 qts less oil in the system and try a 40wt out. He said even though its an 8 qt system, they always run 5.5-6qts max in the system. His best guess was even with the windage trey the oil was getting frothy and sucking air into the system.

He ended the conversation with give me a call back either way and let me know what happens, im curious. lol. Good guys.

 

Sounds about right....

5-6 quarts is all you really ever need in a wet sump system even if the pan holds more.

I wonder if the motor would have the same problem on a chassis dyno, there is load there but not acceleration. If that's the case a simple MIL-32500 from Summit might help oil from creaping up on the rear counterweight of the crank and causing this problem.

Bret

 

That's a possibility, but if that doesn't fix it, the pickup tube isn't far enough down. Hard acceleration can shift enough oil to the back of the pan that after a couple seconds of g's from acceleration, pressure will drop. I think even a number of earlier LT1's do this stock. Just ask InjectedSS about this. He fought this problem for long time.

Jason

 

There is to much main brg clearance for the weight oil he is running. That is all that is wrong with it. IMO as soon as he puts the correct oil for the clearance's in it and a good filter the problem will be solved. Don't know why everybody thinks the super thin synthetic oil is the way to go with large clearances. An engine has to be built accordingly to run that oil on the street,track only cars are different.

 

OK. Final update.

Drained out the $50 of oil with 50 miles on it, what a waste.

Tried 15w-50 mobile 1. Im still using the Napa Wix made filter (changed it, but still same type) and still ran 8 qts. I wanted to eliminate possibilities one by one. Anyways, i only was able to drive the car for about 15 minutes, but i saw NO oil pressure drop at all. Was pretty consistent at 55-60 psi under all load conditions. Good news

Im going to try to find the Kendall GT-1 20-50 as suggested and use that on the next change. I really think the castrol 0w-30 ran smoother than the m1, maybe its in my head, maybe not. Possible that the kendall may seem smoother to me than the m1.

Want to thank everyone again, (1racerdude (larry?) and bret get a special thanks!)

 

Glad to see the progress in the GOOD zone.
I think ya gonna like the GT-1 and so will the engine and your pocketbook.
Let me know if the Kendall works for you. It has always done a good job for me for 30+ yrs.
Yep it's Larry.
Some if not all of these new super dooper oils ain't what they are cracked up to be,thats why I stick with what I know works.