The right cylinder bank on my car floods with oil when I rev the engine hard, 6000+ rpm. I suspect the left bank is close to flooding too. The flooding is bad enough to push oil out the valve cover breather. I am not using a PCV valve, just breathers on both cylinder banks. I rebuilt this engine my self and it has always had the problem. As far as I know there is no blockage of the oil drain back passage ways in the cylinder heads. I am running a Melling high volume oil pump and a mechnical roller cam. Anybody out there had a similar problem or have any ideas why this could be happening or what to check? Perhaps the high volume oil pump is the problem?

...I think You just described what Your Problem is! You have a block designed for a hydraulic cam but Your running a Mechanical Roller. Did You restric the Lifter Bores and the galleries? Good thing Your Not running a PCV or You would be Smoking out the Exhaust Like a Smoke Screen...

Well, Mr. Marlin Jack, it sounds like you know what you are talking about. Previously I was running with a PCV valve and it would smoke rather badly. I did not restrict the lifter bores or galleries. How does the oil for the lifter bores get all the way up to the valve cover? So what do you suggest I do? I don't really want to pull the motor apart again. Is there anything that can be done with the motor in place aside from going back to a hydraulic cam?

The oil drain back passages can be blocked partially by the head gasket, and the intersection of the passages between the heads and block often don't line up very well. This is an area that requires blue printing when a motor is being rebuilt.

Evacuation of gases from the crankcase is a necessity. Blow by past the rings is building up pressure in the crankcase. That pressure is going to escape the crankcase by flowing out the breathers. So you have crankcase gases flowing up the drain back passages the oil is trying to flow down. This is slowing down the flow of oil out of the heads. If you don't have enough vacuum for a PCV valve, install one of the Moroso aspirator systems. Ideally the aspirator should be connected lower in the engine, near the crankcase, but away from oil splash. This way the air & oil are flowing in the same direction within the motor.

However, the roller lifters are almost certainly the main problem, flowing too much oil to the valve gear. And if anything, the hi volume oil pump would have only made things worse, as it flows 25% more oil for any given rpm. New lifters and push rods with 0.040" restrictors will be the best fix short of tearing the motor apart and bushing the lifter bores.

Thanks George. The restirctors that you mention are part of the push rods? I am not familiar with these. Could you explain. The cam was supplied by Crower. I have found hydraulic roller lifters by Comp Cams. This may be a dumb question but I gotta ask, could I use hydraulic roller lifters with a mechanical cam? If I could do that it would save me the trouble of draining the cooling system and replacing the cam.

George...can you be a bit more specific on blue printing the motor for better oil return? I assume it's making sure that the gaskets are not creating blockage or partially restricting flow similar to matching the gaskets on intake and exhaust ports???

My motor is out so I might as well tackle that too.

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I have found hydraulic roller lifters by Comp Cams.

Dan Jones has reported that those hydraulic roller lifters from Comp Cams may not work in the Cleveland because the oil hole is too high on the body and found that they couldn't maintain oil pressure because the oil hole came out the top of the bore into the beveled area. I think these lifters require a reduced base circle cam.

The Ford Motorsport Early Block Hydraulic Roller Lifters are a much better choice and don't have this oiling problem.

With the engine fully installed but the rocker covers off, the simplest way to clear an oil drain-back problem is to use a 5/16" dia hardware store compression spring about 8" long for a screen door. You thread and rotate it by hand into each oil drainback passages like a Roto-rooter. In each stock head, there's only two drain-backs; one is straight through and seldom is totally blocked, but the other has two bends to work around internal water passages. The drillings that make this one up often don't match up, and stuff accumulates that eventually causes complete blockages. I've seen "reconditioned" cylinder heads in which this drain was absolutely full of brick-hard varnish. Hours in a hot tank degreaser will not clear such slop, but a door-spring is flexible enough to work around the curves.
If you do clear blockages like this on an assembled engine, all the slop then falls into the oil pan, so do this just before a normal oil change. If little pieces of slop eventually work their way through the coarse screen on the oil pump pickup, the varnish is hard enough to momentarily seize an oil pump and shear the distributor drive-gear roll pin.

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Originally posted by garth66:

quote:

I have found hydraulic roller lifters by Comp Cams.

Dan Jones has reported that those hydraulic roller lifters from Comp Cams may not work in the Cleveland because the oil hole is too high on the body and found that they couldn't maintain oil pressure because the oil hole came out the top of the bore into the beveled area. I think these lifters require a reduced base circle cam.

The Ford Motorsport Early Block Hydraulic Roller Lifters are a much better choice and don't have this oiling problem.

Garth, I've been reading as much as I can on those lifters by Comp...I was almost ready to order their entire kit (cam, roller hyd lifters, springs, pushrods, etc). Art Stephens uses the same cam and "Retro Hyd Roller Lifters from Comp Cams and has have very good luck with them in his stroker...Russ Fulps recommended those lifters, and I thought Art said Dennis A used the same kit but one level higher??? I don't think Arts lifter bores were bushed or modified. On the comp cam literature/propaganda I recall it saying their kit cams use a reduced base circle, and that the orficing inside is "NEW" so they don't pump up at higher rev...but that's if you order the entire kit with matched pieces. Then again I had one of their techs tell me that that lifter won't rev much past 5500 and that "those lifters would be a great choice for a cleveland motor since those heads don't breath". (sorry George...this might be better put in a new subject, not trying to be a hijacker)

George - Can the camshaft in a Pantera be replaced with the motor in the car? The Ford shop manual says to remove the motor and transaxle to replace the cam. Seems to me you should be able to replace the cam with the motor in place. Thanks.