Drag Pan - Pantried

Step Two
Our plan had been to try and further enhance our street/strip pan with a crankshaft scraper, but John son strongly suggested we'd be better off upgrading the pan itself. We try to listen to the voice of experience, and we're especially glad we did in this case. McLellan recom mended Moroso PN 21047, an eliminator pan for Bracket and Super Stock cars. The advan tages of this pan's features are better illustrated than explained, so we'll get right to the point: We bolted it on and made an extra 17 hp, along with 11 lb-ft torque. The averages also improved by 10 lb-ft and 6 hp. The drag pan costs about $270 more than the street/strip pan, which sounds like a lot, but it actually provides a good power pay off. "That kickout and win dage tray they've got built into that pan works," John son sums up. "And we're not even talking about how much better that is for your bearings." Sounds like a win-win scenario to us, and we'll take that too.

A main cap baffle can help improve oil control in a stock or street/strip-type pan. It mounts between the rear main bearing cap and the oil pump, and it keeps oil from the sump away from the crankshaft under acceleration. "A wedge of oil forms between the front and the rear of the sump," McLellan explains. "This piece blocks that wedge off and redirects it to the oil pump." This doesn't happen on a dyno, so we only show it here. When this bullet makes it into a vehicle, we'll install it.

Our original plan was to install a crank scraper as part of this test. The premise is clear enough: Oil can rope around the crank as it rotates; this piece scrapes it off. As you can see, the scraper must be fitted to the crank--a task that Mike Johnson of JMS Racing Engines figures would add at least $150 to an engine build and, in his experience, wouldn't yield a power gain. Johnson suggests that money would be better spent on a pan with a kickout. "As the motor comes around, the kickout catches the oil in the pouch and keeps it from whipping up into the block, where it comes back down on the crank again," he explains. Did it work? Given our power gains, we'd have to say yes. CHP

MOROSO ELIMINATOR DRAG PAN
1. The solid louvered windage tray is built into the pan, keeping it--and the oil slung onto it by the crank--farther away from the rotating assembly. Oil left on top of the pan finds its way into the kickout.

2. Main cap partitions control the oil's direct path to the front portion of the pan, promoting drainage rather than windage.

3. "The power kickout adds additional area to the front portion of the pan," points out McLellan. Instead of letting oil follow the assembly, the kickout strips it away, isolating it from the rotating assembly and further reducing windage.

4. The core-based pan features a stock pan-rail bolt pattern and will accommodate up to a 4.50-inch stroke with steel rods.

The increase in oil pressure we saw by installing the windage tray in our street/strip pan was nice, but our search for more power warranted a swap to a Moroso eliminator drag racing pan, PN 21047. According to Moroso's Brint McLellan, the trickle-down theory holds true for this pan. "We usually test for 2-3 years with builders and race teams before coming out with a new pan," says McLellan. "The features in this pan stem from Pro Stock technology." And while there are certainly more advanced-and expensive-pans, he calls this piece "the best of both worlds," providing the good oil pressure everyone wants to see and freeing up some power.