1987 IROC with a UMI Road Race K member, UMI LS swap brackets and engine mounts, LS427/570 crate motor with a Holley 302-1 oil pan (to clear the 427's stroke,) Tremec T56 Magnum F and stock, OEM steering linkages.

As I was raising the transmission into place to get my Holley transmission crossmember in place, I noticed the oil pan getting close to the Center Link. With the transmission still needing to be raised about another inch up into the transmission tunnel, this is what I'm looking at:


If you look real close, there is about 1/16" of clearance between the pan and the center link. Unfortunately, I still need to raise the transmission at least another inch which will result in my oil plan hard pressing onto the center link.



Just a little wider view of what I'm working with.

The transmission still needs to go up another inch into the tunnel so the Holley oil pan will be pressed hard onto the center link/relay rod. I can move the engine aft one inch but that will not clear the center link/relay rod. Changing out this $450 Holley oil pan is not an option. Here is a quote from Holley concerning their 302-2 oil pan which does have the front clearance for the center link:

• NOTE – Oil pan #302-2 may not be used with LS7 engines or “stroker” engines greater than 3.62”.

I need a solid 1/4" more oil pan to center link clearance so that I can raise the transmission to it's proper rear height.

What about this crazy idea? I buy another center link and cut the ends off and keep the middle part. The part between the two castle nuts that you can see in my second picture above. I take the middle part and MIG weld it to the bottom of my center link. I then grind off 1/4" of the top of my current center link giving me the clearance that I need as well as insuring the strength of the center link. I'd have to grind a 1/4" off along about one foot of the center link to allow clearance along the full sweep of the steering lock to lock. Is this too crazy? Too ghetto? Do I need to think about converting to rack and pinion steering? Let me know what you think.

 

Can you put a spacer between the motor mounts/x-member. Those mounts look kinda short.

 

My car buddy here in the Houston area asked me the same thing. I suppose that I could remove the center link, jack the transmission up into place and then measure how high the bottom of the oil pan would have to be to clear the top of the center link after it is installed again. I'm thinking that I'd need a minimum of 1/4" thick metal plates between the engine mounts and the K member.

 

These are the LS swap engine mounts that I used: 2409 – 1982-1992 GM F-Body UMI K-Member LS Motor Mounts

 

Probably the easiest solution and safer than cutting/welding your steering link. Though you could probably grind 1/16th from both the pan/link where they "meet" to help increase the gap.
Those mounts look shorter with that bushing style. I have the hawks mounts with the clamshell type mounts.

 

Well, after talking with my friend, it looks like I bought the wrong Holley oil pan. I should've purchased the Holley GM LS Swap Oil Pan - Most Front Clearance

 

Have you looked at the Holley 302-3 pan?

It is normal to buy and sell stuff that doesn't work. I've done it many times. Somebody will buy your pan and you'll get 75% of your money back.

 

Yes. I've looked at the 302-3 pan. I had it written in my notes from last spring/summer.


Notice that the price was less than today's "sale" price.

IIRC, I had made a phone call to Holley and the tech on the phone steered me to the 302-1.

I may just try to sell the 302-1.

 

From the pictures, I don’t think spacers would work because of the 45 degree angle of the engine mounts. If you put spacers between the k-member and the engine mounts it will narrow the distance between them (engine block) an equal distance that they will be raised. Shimming would only be possible with pedestal style engine mounts. I hope you can see the visual effects.

 

Even if I could fit a 1/4"-3/8" spacer in there, I knew that 45 degree angle was also going affect how much it actually raised the engine. Gotta do some mathematics.

Anyway, doing it the proper way requires me pulling the engine back out and spending another almost $500 on a new Holley 302-3 oil pan and a new gasket. The 302-3 pan will require trimming modifications to my LS427's windage tray as well.

 

I had the same problem .. so i switched to the Moroso pan part # MOR-20145 and Gasket MOR-93152 .. Dipstick tube MOR-24050 Works with my 416 stroker

 

sodak, it looks like you've got plenty of steering linkage clearance underneath the front part of your oil pan.

I noticed that you've got a Moser Ford, 9" rear. If you've been driving your car, is the 9" rear end quiet or does it whine driving down the road?

 

I went ahead and ordered an overpriced, Holley 302-3 oil pan and it arrived at my house so the swap will begin this week.

I changed my mind on a couple of things: 1. I didn't order a new oil pan gasket as I'm planning to just reuse this one unless you guys tell me not to do that. 2. I'm going to try to the the oil pan removal and replacement with the engine in the car.

 

Most people experience whine. Pretty common, I hear it above 45mph.

 

It's actually a Detroit Speed housing with a Gear Fx center an Moser 31 spline Axels.. They said it would wine.. Car is still in build Stage

 

 

That seems to be what I read about the Ford 9" rears. Maybe not all of them but most of them. Thanks for your responses on this, guys.

 

like everything else it is just a question on risk... since it is a new build and you don't want any weep, seep, leak, i personally would change the oil pan gasket as that way you get clean corners where you put the rtv with no question in the four corners for the gasket or the surface, etc...

 

alan, thank you for your reply.

I'm currently working on trying to remove the -1 oil pan. It's not coming off without me lifting the engine higher. I'm going to hook the engine hoist to it and see if I can raise it enough. If not, then the engine has to come back out and I'll be at the same point that I was 2 months ago.

 

I once had to change out pickup tube in my 302-1 pan. Absolutely no chance of getting that pan off while in the car. I dropped out the k-member instead of pulling the engine because that's just a lot easier process for me. I have a steel Quick Time flywheel housing and rested that on heavy wood cribbing. Not sure I would dare put all that cantilevered weight on stock aluminum housing.

 

Proper break in with 9 inch center sections is key. I followed MWC break in to the Tee and mine doesn't make any noise. It's as smooth and quiet today as it was when I put it in the car 4 years ago. I run a Yukon nodular iron center with Yukon grizzly locker 35 spline 3.25 US gear

 

The MWC ones seem to get the best reviews in terms of noise. I broke mine in as well and I still have whine.

 

Yeah. This rear gear whine is something that would absolutely drive me nuts. My cars are not track cars; I drive them on the street with my wife and youngest daughter.

I'm just going to admit that the Ford 9" is probably not what I'm going to buy for my IROC.

 

The brand of gears you go with makes a huge difference as well. I had a choice between Richmond, Motive and US Gear, I have heard, at that point that Richmond and Motive whined regardless of how well they were set up so I decided to give US Gear a try and glad I did cause I haven't been disappointed

 

Unless you're planning on making some steam then I'd probs not recommend a 9 inch for your car either. If I was you I'd be going with a Hawks 8.8 with like a 3.50 gear. I'm currently sitting in the 850-900 whp range and I'm shooting for 1100+ in the spring, getting rid of the 50/50 meth mix and going 100% meth

 

Probably not going to modify the stock LS427/570 unless something goes wrong with those LS7 heads. It appears that they can be problematic. If so, I'll be calling Tony Mamo for a set of his heads.

Anyway, I have been considering the Hawks 8.8. I haven't had any problems with the 8.8 in my LS swapped, Foxbody Mustang coupe. This 8.8 came out of my 1991 Mustang GT that I ordered brand new from Ford in 1991. The coupe was originally a 4-cyl car so it had the weak Ford rear end. The GT had saltwater air rust damage from when I lived by the beach in North Florida. It was a no brainier to install that perfectly good 8.8 rear in the coupe. I did swap the rear gear from the factory 3.08 to 3.55 using Ford gears. No whine.

My other consideration is a GM 12 bolt.

I'm probably not going with an S60 because the lowest numerical gear that I can go with will be a 3.55 (or 3.54) like what I have in the Mustang. I'd prefer a 3.42 or maybe a 3.31 rear gear. I could still be talked into the 3.55 (3.54) and then the S60 would be an option.

 

How about an update to the original topic of this thread?

I was able to raise the engine high enough with the cherry picker to get the -1 oil pan off. A couple of blocks of wood under the engine mounts made me feel more comfortable working on the engine while it was held up by the hoist.

The sump of the 302-1 oil pan is pretty short front to back and with the double stack of 2x4 blocks of wood, I had enough room to remove the pan.


I then removed the oil pump pickup tube and the windage tray. The windage tray needs modified to fit the shallow, front part of the new, 302-3 oil pan.


The -3 oil pan instructions have very precise measurement listed for trimming the windage tray. I trimmed the tray with my die grinder then used files to clean up the rough, sharp edges.

 

I cleaned up the windage tray real good and then installed it along with the -3's oil pump pickup tube. I was careful to make sure that I didn't damage the tube's o-ring or pinch it. The windage tray was a pain in that there is a washer (8) that goes between the stud and the actual tray. Trying to keep 8 of them in place while trying to get the assembly in place laying under the car was a real PITA. A little bit of motor oil actually held them mostly in place, Grease would've worked better but the oil was fine.


Here is the trimmed windage tray in place. That's the gasket that I used with the -1 pan. The four corners were still stuck to the block with the silicone that I applied for the -1 pan. I never let gravity work on the gasket. I always had 4 corner bolts with washers to support the siliconed corners.


Now it was time to get the new, 302-3 oil pan on. With the two blocks of wood underneath the engine mounts, I couldn't get the -3 pan on . The -3 pan has a longer sump, front to back and it just wouldn't fit. It was time to raise the engine even further. We raised the engine high enough for me to finally get the oil pan on.


You can see how high we had to raise the engine to get the 302-3 oil pan sump to fit behind the K member cross bars.

In the above photo, the oil pan is on but not really. You see, as I put the oil pan in place and then raised it up to the engine block, everything was fine until the last 1/4" before the pan was up against the gasket/engine block. As I raised the pan completely in place, the rear of the pan would shift to the passenger side about 1/8" throwing the bolt holes out of alignment. Arrrrrggggghhhhh !!

At this point I knew that something was hitting on the inside and I wasn't going to fool with the engine hanging from the hoist. It was time to pull the motor the rest of the way out. Yes! I was really POd because of all the time and effort I'd wasted.

 

Geez it seems like you've been taking one baby step forward and 5 steps backwards with this build

 

Once the engine was out of the car, I removed the -3 pan and then started removing other parts. I first removed the oil pump pickup tube then tried to put the pan back in place. It still shifted 1/8" to the right without the pickup tube. Something else was making contact.

I looked closely at the bottom end of my engine and started to suspect that the oil pan was contacting the rear, right side of the windage tray. I put a little bit of grease on the windage tray where I thought that it was contacting the oil pan. I then raised the oil pan into place and it shifted to the right. I removed the oil pan and I could see grease on the pan right at the mounting surface.

Here is a picture of the rear, right mounting surface of the -1 pan:

This is the -1 oil pan gasket surface. I measured the width here with a dial caliper and got a measurement of about .900".



This is the new, -3 oil pan. It's very easy to see that this gasket surface is much wider than the -1 oil pan's surface. About .150" wider. I scribed a line where it needed to be gound to remove the offending, .150".


Using my die grinder with a carbide burr made quick work of removing the extra aluminum.

I cleaned up the rough, burr marks with a file.

 

After thoroughly cleaning up the oil pan, I put everything back together and now the oil pan fit without contacting the right, rear of the windage tray. I tightened up all the oil pan bolts and my wife and I installed the engine back into the engine bay. A day or two later, I stabbed the transmission and it's now all back together with the Holley transmission crossmember in place. The front of the oil pan fits the car and DOESN'T contact the steering rod!


All of that work to get back to the same place that I was a month ago. Cars can be so frustrating!

 

It's been soooooo frustrating! I thought, hoped, wished that this build would go smoother than my LS3, Foxbody build. Nope!

 

Where did you find an LS7 crate? I assume you bought this years ago?

 

Yes. Years ago right after we enthusiasts found out that the LS427/570, wet sump crate engines were going away. I was lucky enough to scour the internet over a period of about 3 weeks and found one for MSRP.

A GM guy at the GM display at “Cruisin’ the Coast” 2024 told me that these LS427s were all originally dry sump, 505hp LS7s. He said GM couldn’t give them away. GM decided to convert them to wet sump and add more cam and then the hotrodders started buying them. Once the last one was sold, that was it. He said that an actual LS7 (427) hadn’t been manufactured in years but all us enthusiasts were told that GM had just terminated production of the crate motor.

 

Congratulations on finally having some success with your build. Everyone here has been where you are and we feel your pain, but in 2 months you will have forgotten all about it when the next “frustrations” come around. Stay with it, you’re almost there. Good luck and we hope to see you driving your car soon.