I am building an engine for my T/A. It is a 350 of course, what oil pump should I use, high Volume or not? I've heard brief arguments for both. How does oil weight affect this decision. I want to be able to run what ever I want, but more than likely, the motor will be broken in on Castrol GTX 10-30, then will be switched over to Castrol Syntec 10-30 year round.

 

TBI,

I would spec the standard displacement/rev oil pump, and install a higher pressure relief spring if you want a little more pressure. The extra volume from a HV pump will only cause more oil to dump out the relief and waste power.

The only times you really need more volume is if you've installed a turbo(s) that use a volume of oil, or timing gear spray nozzles (which still might not require enough extra volume to mandate an HV pump), or valve spring cooling manifolds in the rocker covers that flow a lot more oil.

 

I went through this when building my 383 and the consensus was that a smallblock pumps plenty of oil for a street motor and that a high volume on the street would do no more than pump all the oil to the top end and starve the main bearings without a large capacity oilpan so unless you're putting on a big pan, don't put on a big pump.

 

They normally have bolt on pickups. But, you can get a Bolton pw for standard volume pumps. Like they said, you really don't need to worry about it.. just make sure you have good oil flow and 10psi for every 1000 rpm and your ok.