Sump & Compatability with Main Stud Girdles

I have stripped my engine down to add a few go fast goodies (including conversion to a carburettor) and am very happy with what I have found so far. The engine has been reco'd recently with Forged Speed Pro pistons, resized rods, Melling HV oil pump, full balance etc. Another pleasing aspect is the factory fitted sump, which is a pretty good design with gated baffles and a crank scraper etc.

Question: Has anyone fitted a main stud girdle yet, in conjunction with the factory sump? If so, were any mods done to the sump get the girdle to fit and how has the car performed oil pressure wise since fitment?

Thanks, Kel.

For those interested, a main stud girdle is compatable with the Panoz sump on our cars. I chose a Probe main stud girdle that came complete with ARP main studs. All that was required for fitment was some trimming of the sumps crank scraper and it all fits together OK. Also a little grinding required on the oil pump casting to get the stud girdle to clear this in a couple of places.

Reason for fitting the main girdle (as many of you may know) is that the blocks in these engines are not the strongest and are prone to splitting right through the middle of the block when Hp gets up around/over the 400 mark. We have a national sedan race class over here that many of the field use the same 302 Ford and this was a reasonably common failure until a heavy duty block was allowed within the class rules. I have seen a couple of these failed engines and it is pretty impressive. Stud girdles help but ultimate fix is HD block.

As I am building an endurance engine and flywheel output is expected to be between 400 - 430Hp I am being somewhat conservative with the build.

Im shooting for 300-320 rwhp with our H/C/I package on our 302. Various local shops recommended the girdles based on RPM vs. power. They all said Ill be fine with a 400 hp 6500 rpm motor.

If I ever build a new motor itll have a stud girdle etc. And yes... youre 100% right about the blocks splitting, Ive read all the same stuff.

Hmm, its an interesting one. The local series that use these engines have a 6400rpm limit and the engines were producing around 380 - 400hp at the time they started to encounter the split block failures. Only issue that I think may have contributed in their case was running the engines right on the edge air:fuel wise. They tried running girdles but still had some failures. They now run World Products blocks.

I'll let you know how I go as engine wise as first race up for me will be a 1 hour enduro to get a feel for tyre wear/fuel consumption etc with the car and then its on to 3, 4 & 6 hour races.

^ Awesome! Way to really use the car. It's just HPDEs and NASA TT right now. Possibly going to do some NASA ST2 races next year.