@bosswrench posted:Not sure if a new 351-C dipstick is available anywhere on the planet, but the dimensions are in the TSBs (the 2nd one on dipsticks), and Ford has hundreds of longer dipsticks available almost free at wrecking yards everywhere. A 351-Windsor stick from a Van is about 4 feet long! My custom one came from a 1-ton Diesel truck and you need not be a machinist to cut one down and remark it.
Besides the good reasons listed, the main reason for running an Aviaid 10-qt pan is for cornering, even on the street with a stock skinny-tire Pantera. Aviaid or Armando pans have far better baffling around the pump pickup, an in-pan windage tray and a better crank scraper while not hanging down to reduce road clearance. All stock pans allow oil to slosh away from the pump pickup while cornering. Air bubbles & oil is nowhere near good enough for a 351-C.
I saw a 'vigorously' driven Pantera with a stock pan lose it's crank bearings in a 2 hr open track event. If you ever explore the outer reaches of the tach, back in the '80s Mike Cook's dyno experiment with transparent rocker covers showed that without modifying things, oil drain-back was slow enough that 5000 rpms for a few minutes would fill up both rocker covers, leaving only one (1.0) quart out of 5 in a stock pan. Kinda scary at todays overhaul prices....
I always thought that the additional drain back fittings added to the valve covers shown in the Ford Boss 302 Modification booklet was a good idea. Modifications like that were run by some of the teams racing the Boss 302 in Trans Am in 1969 and 1970.
Iron Boss 302 and Boss 351C closed chamber heads are really the same.
When I bought my Aviaid pan for my Pantera, I wanted Aviad to add the fittings to the pan for additional drain back lines but got talked out of it as unnecessary.
I'm not that easy anymore to talk out of things and I am still thinking about it?
In addition to the Aviad pan, I'm running an external oil cooler, dual remote oil filters with -10 lines and the cooler has it's own electric cooling fan that turns it self on automatically . The total volume of the system is 12 quarts.
Even with the additional capacity the Aviaid pan adds, I'm not sure that a full comp car wouldn't still need additional drain back help? I certainly do not see where it would hurt?
At some point in the past it was mentioned by someone that they thought that early in it's racing developement, the Boss 302/Cleveland head was having issues with valve spring failure.
I heard that the fix for that was to submerse the valve spring in oil by letting the valve cover fill a couple of inches with oil.
Now I was not privy to any of this "information" so I have no opinion specifically on the accuracy of those comments but may be significant to this discussion?