Jeep Strokers

Its probably been beat like a dead horse.. but.... do you run a standard volume or high volume oil pump?

I'm debating running one... and debating... I know there is a chance for distributor and cam gear wear. In the winter that would worry me. I know it may rob you of a few HP. But being my situation with cam bearing failure I am considering it. I will also be using restrictor push rods with a .040" orifice (now its about .080"). Also, I have heard that the extra volume slinging off your crank can help lube the cam at lower RPMs. My bearing clearances are .018"-.020", but might change as I am going to be using King bearings and I have heard they typically run a little loser than Clevite.

SilverXJ wrote:My bearing clearances are .018"-.020"

Personally I'd shoot for about .0015", if your clearances are correct there is no need for a high volume pump.
As for "extra oil" on the cam?, I'm still scratching my head at why?? there seems to be so many cam failures!!!?????

I have a High volume pump but it's only for the lubrication of the turbos.

I put upper main bearing main caps on 6 of the mains (360 oiling... the rod journals get oil pressure *all* the time... helping keep them good along with slinging a bunch more oil at the cam...)... so I run the High Volume oil pump with 10W-30 Royal Purple. I get mid 20's oil pressure at idle and 40's and 50's on the street. It only "pegs" against the oil pump bypass... when its cold. Seems just perfect for me. Gonna do a Oil analysis after the *next* oil change and see how things are doing.

I would do this again.

lafrad, what are your winters like?

Very very cold.

I live right outside of Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The Stroker has seen some -10F starts so far. Last week it was doing "okay" at 95F. need to adjust my fan settings as it would get a little too warm when idling for extended periods.

I ran one on my last engine. It was fine for a year and a half. Then I swapped it and the bigger cam into a fresher short block. I got a new dist but forgot to keep old cam gear. About 1k later gear shreaded. When I pulled it out one of the ears was snapped off the hv pump. Don't really know what caused it.

I run a Melling HV oil pump though I'm sure that a standard volume pump would have been fine. I live in a hot desert climate so I use a 10W-40 SL-rated semi-synthetic oil to keep the cold start oil pressure just under 60psi and still have good oil pressures when the oil is hot. Oil pressures hot are 25psi at idle and 50psi maximum.

Not to make your decision harder, but there have been plenty of cam failures from engines WITH the HV pumps. I run a standard and my thinking is that I'm only using it like I would a stock jeep. I'm not racing it and it's not gonna see extended periods of high rpm, so the standard one should be fine. I run rotella 15w40.

I can see how a HV pump can contribute to cam gear wear/failure, but I fail to see how it would play a factor in cam lobe failure.

I'm running the Melling HV oil pump in my stroker. My only worry is I do some hwy driving and I do notice a slight drop in oil pressure when running at constant hwy speeds, probably from less oil in the oil pan. My hot idle is still around 30psi and cold start max is 55-60psi.

Its probably the oil just getting a bit thinner as it gets hotter. You shouldn't be running that much rpm on the highway.

SilverXJ wrote:Its probably the oil just getting a bit thinner as it gets hotter. You shouldn't be running that much rpm on the highway.

You're probably right about the oil getting thinner. I'm running 2800ish at 70mph on the hwy with the 4.88s.

yikes yea, you are probably heating the oil up quite a bit!

Good part of that is, hot oil runs back into the pan faster. make sure you are using good stuff that can handle the higher temps and its golden.

What was your initial oil pressure on the highway and oil pressure after hot?

Even with my lose cam bearing clearance oil pressure was good until it was driven for a while.