Thought I'd share a few photos I came accross yesterday. These are pics of a front cover mounted oil pump system I designed for small block Fords to help alleviate some swap problems with the stock oil pump location. I got the idea from the front pump gears in an automatic trans years ago. I think I did this project about 1999. Ford was interested but I never could get from the prototype stage to fully tested and manufacturable. We're talking mega bucks. So here it is my contribution to trying to keep a few more Fords with Ford power.
With this oil pump system I was hoping to make it easier for Ford engines to clear transverse front spring crossmembers. In addition it took the load off the distributer and got rid of the oil pump drive rod. The oil pan in the pics was a stock double sump Mustang pan. With the front cover pump you could configure the pan any way you want.
Looks as if it would have worked..........They may have been concerned about the durability of an aluminum pump housing.....as in some, not all, Buick engines I have seen..................Ford did use that configuration before, I believe, on the early 60's era Lincoln's, for the power steering pump................It was just behind the balancer, made into the timing cover.
You're right mid 60's Lincolns used this location for the P/S pump. Durability should not have been an issue. Aluminium is the standard material for oil pump housings now. The only drwback to a crank driven pump that I know of is that it runs 1:1 with the crank speed. This can be excessive at ultra high rpm's in endurance applications. To get around that you have to make the bypass system more adequate.
That makes sense................................What effect would crankshaft end play have on the longevity of the setup??????...............Understand, please, I am not trying to pick apart your idea, only trying to understand the reasons why this style was never implemented.....................It is definitely a space saver!!!!!!
So what happened with the system? Scrapped or ? I seem to recall reading about this a few years back and figured it would be the perfect excuse for me to put a SBF in my '40. Wish it would have worked out for you.
I think pretty much all the newer V8s (designed after the invention of DIS) have the oil pump up front on the crank snout. Can you say "mod motor"?
Crankshaft endplay would have no effect on pump durability because the pump's inner gear is driven by two "flats" machined on the harmonic balancer. They simply slide together no way to bind from endplay. With a system like this the small block Ford would become the easiest V8 to install in just about anything. First you could configure the pan and pickup to fit any chassis, and you would have the added benefit of a front mounted dist allowing a builder to avoid cutting the firewall for that clearance. It probably could have sold alot of crate engines had Ford pursued something like this. Caught them at the wrong time I guess. The next step from where I left off was a $100,000 + step. Way out of reach for a shadetree like me.
The parts are being shipped back to me from a prominent engine builder who was way too busy with his core business to have time to develop a small, time consuming project like this. I'd still like to see something come of it, just not sure if it's time has passed.
Maybe there's enough guys on the HAMB that might chip in and make a $100k step into a $1k step. We're a bunch of smart guys. ~Jason
The Jalopy Journal
