Oil pumps
 

Hey everyone
Looking to get some group thoughts on oil pumps and if the price premium is worth it.

First the basic choice:
Melling m54ds 60 psi around $90
This seems to be the go to basic pump offering no frills but solid functionality.

Next the "step up":
Melling 10540 60 psi pump around $170
For some reason this pump is almost double the cost and though a lot of people praise it on here I can't fully understand why. Is it worth it? I see some people stick recommend a thicker plate which is another $30-40.

The possibly overpriced option:
Butler performance BPI-M54DS-PRO 60-70 psi pump $210
This one boasts a whole slew of upgrades including thicker plate and dimpled gears. This appears to be a modified melling M54 pump from the part number. I'm sure this is a good pump but is it worth more than twice the basic M54DS?

Ok so for a 90% street / 10%strip car is it worth the premium for either more expensive pump? Looking for your guy's experiences with any of them.
Thanks

Another options is the Nitemare Performance pump.

http://www.nitemareperformance.com/h...20oilpump.html

I'm running this along with Darren's gun drilled hardened driveshaft and his oil pan. My engine builder had high praise for the pump.

Thanks JL wasn't aware of that one.

I do know there is even more expensive options from Butler, Luhn and Titan but I excluded those as they seem overkill for mostly street engine

What size are your mains on this motor. 3.00” or 3.25”?

I bought a blueprinted pump from Spotts, haven’t installed it yet but the price was reasonable and he does great work.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/28680442067...IAAOSw47hiarjb

In the Pontiac world, oil pump choice is almost as controversial as what oil to put in it. I will simply post this for perspective. The Pontiac oil pump is a very simple device. 2 spur gears and a relief ball. That's it. All the "designer " pumps came about because the basic, perfectly good oil pump was cheapened up over the decades and the quality control went to hell. The old, HP pumps had a cast or thick bottom plate, ground flat. The check ball seat was lapped, machined properly and didn't leak. The surface top and bottom where the bolt heads go to attach to the block was machined flat on both sides. Short cuts were taken by the aftermarket in all these areas to save money and this introduced trouble areas on an otherwise bullet proof component. The "designer" pumps you buy for double the cost of a basic pump simply return it to the way a basic pump was made in the 1960's. You can fix or check all this stuff yourself easily or buy one that has been checked for you.
We ran regular M54F, (80 lb. relief), pumps in the Grocery Getter drag race car for 15+ years @ 8000 RPM's, and made 1500 HP with it. Never hurt a main or rod bearing in those engines. The only modifications were a welded pick-up tube and a thick bottom plate.
Being somewhat cheap, I start with a basic pump and check the items mentioned above and call it a day. We ran a factory hardened drive shaft in our pumps. Heat treated aftermarket ones look nice. Awfully hard to justify super fancy, gun drilled centerless ground, hardened drive shafts for a car going to the cruise in a dozen times a year. If it were a Ford driving the oil pump with a 1/4" Allen hex drive, that's a different story. Good luck with your build.

What ever pump you buy take it apart. In the early 70s we found a 'big paper clip' inside one.Maybe also check for flash from machining.

If it were a Ford driving the oil pump with a 1/4" Allen hex drive, that's a different story
Yea my college roommate's 35C 4 speed Ranchero snapped one!

so would a 1968 GTO 400 engines original oil pump with 45000 original miles on it, be worth just a good cleaning and reassemble?

Yes and since it’s a 60 psi pump it will have the thick bottom plate.

3" mains on my build

So it sounds like what I was already thinking, that the m54ds is good just tear it down and check it out first. does anyone have any specs for the pumps as to what the clearances should be?

Is a thicker plate truly worth the extra $30-40 or can I just take the regular plate and some glass and sandpaper to make sure it's flat.

I really don't understand what makes the 10540 pump nearly double the cost.

Even when I have a think bottom plate on my pump if I have a thin steel one from a 40 psi I sand / grind the notch off it and bolt it on to the top of thick plate.

I set up my pumps with .004” gear to plate clearance.

I polish in a nice radius from the outlet of the gear cavity and I double pin the pickup tube to the pump body after making sure the lip of the pickup screen case is sitting on the cast locating lip on the side of the pump body.

Perfect, thanks Steve!

A good friend who ran roundy round Pontiacs,the one was RAV. He said at one time he doubled up the thin plates in an emergency. I never did that but !!

This is the plate you want. There is no reason to use a cast iron thick plate. Why, they have countersunk bolt holes for a flathead screw or Allen bolt.
Problem is with that countersunk hole you can not fabricate a hold down strap between a bolt and you pickup.
That is the way you want to do it. Under no circumstances should you tack weld (iron/steel weld ?) a pick up to pump body. And do not mess around with screws or pins either. Why would you put anything in the flow of your oil when you can just make a strap bolted to this nice and thick Nightmare plate ?
But I am a oil pump nerd. I go all the way and enlarge the pickup dia,, 9/16" check ball with shims,drill the little oil divot in the bottom of the gears too. Even the inside dia of a 3/4" tube is marginal for size. Been proven.
http://nitemareperformance.com/pumpplate.html

Thanks Dragncar,
Yeah I been all over trying to decide what's worth it and I think I'm just gonna buy the m54ds and a thick plate from tin indian performance. I'll take the pump apart and lap the ball and clean up whatever need to be cleaned. What's the difference between the 5/8 and stock 9/16 ball. Is it worth swapping?

Not all the thick plates use countersunk bolts. In fact they are the least common.

I believe he was referring to the butler pro pump as they use countersunk bolts.

That is true. I haven't seen the thick cast plate with the countersunk holes in many years. But I had no issues with them as I don't use a support strap on stock pick ups. Welding the pickup is really easy with the correct rod and clean parts. I remove the spring, ball and gears. TIG all the way around with a silicon bronze rod. Easy and zero failures. The bolted strap is fine of course but more involved if using a stock pickup. Custom pickups I generally use the strap provided. The Nightmare Performance plate is very nice. I have used several of them.

The premise for a 9/16 ball is in case debris gets into the pump, the smaller ball will allow it to pass vs the ball getting hung up on the debris. And if a 9/16 ball is used, it should be shimmed to restore the pump’s pressure to what it would have been with the stock 5/8 ball.

I was talking about the thicker cast iron ones. I have not seen a cast iron cover without the countersunk holes.
BTW, if anyone gets the Nightmare plate, do not get the "Pro" plate.
That groove is BS. Its too large a dia, no way it can hold a oil wedge.

Some of the thicker plates available are aluma-bronze alloy. The Butler plates look aluminum but I could be wrong. If the thicker plates are aluminum I am not sure using one would be any benefit. A thin steel plate would be stronger. Its not like we have steel plate bottom pumps cracking either so one has to wonder if the plate mod is a feel good type of deal. No harm or real benefit even with the grooves.

Looks like Butler does not machine the pump to block bolt head surface flat either, even on their PRO pumps.

I was wrong and the Butler pro pump machines the foot, sorry guys.

I know, the good thick covers were standard on all factory RAIV & SD455 pumps and the Melling 60 & 80 lbs. pumps until they consolidated their product line so all their pumps used the cheap cover. Around 1990 $18.95 would get you a high quality pump from Melling. Since then every part has been cheapened and imported, now they cost about $90

He wasn't, the Butler pump comes with the countersink bolts and a special spacer for a "strap" oil pick up can be used.... That gear cover isn't cast iron

Link to my review of the 10540, from 2018

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...ighlight=10540

Thanks Chip,
I read that thread and it nudged me away from the 10540 pump

I guess the thicker aluminum bottom plate would save some weight :D

Looking at nightmare performances page I'm not sure what they do to make the pump better. Their listing pretty much is a direct copy and paste of the melling 10540 pump. And appears they just add their plate to it. I may be wrong but I don't know why they wouldn't list the work done to improve performance.

I was going to order the pro plate thank you for the info.

I'd recommend talking with Darrin at Nitemare directly. Like any of the performance pumps, they start with a melling piece and blueprint from there. If I recall my conversations, it's checked for straightness, run-out on the gears etc.

Darrin talked more specifically about the plate. It's a machined steel plate at .25" and the pro option has a .040x.040 machined ring under the drive and coast gears. It adds direct lubrication to the underside of the gears and Darrin claims in helps with cavitation.

I did his hole kit at the same time. pump, driveshaft and oil pan.

I won't pretend to be an oil-pump expert, but my engine building was impressed with the pump. He gave me unsolicited praise of it when I mentioned the engine had a nice oil pressure curve on the dyno. It does just about 85psi at 6000 rpm. With the hole kit I've never once seen oil starvation issues, and I swing the car around a good bit.

Try this guy...

https://stores.precisionoilpumps.com...i-street-pump/

I still have one sitting in my toolbox. Not going to use it. A PY member PMed me about it and yep, that groove is too large a circle to do anything good. It can only make things worse.
I took a standard Nightmare plate and copied the location for that little slot the cast iron plates have. Got a small dia cutoff wheel and carefully made my own slot, dusted the edge with a piece of 400 grit .
I just found another pump on E Bay that a non Melling which is what I want as this one has enough meat around the pickup tube boss to use a Ford Mod .900 dia pickup tube.

+1 to look at Precision Oil Pumps

What was the number on a stock oil pump say like a 2-barrel 400 ci
And what kind of oil pressure would it have, I thought they were 40 psi?

GT

That might be the way I go.

Dragncar, your pump picture with the thick cast bottom plate looks like the countersunk holes were slotted to the right to get the holes to line up but could be just shadows. If there has been a massage, not sure I would be keen on that once going with weaker CI over steel is factored in.

Appears as though the Precision pump uses the thin steel plate. Not exactly clear on the rational for doubling up the thin steel plate either other than a feel good.

The part for the 40 psi 5/8” pick up tube thin steel plate pump was 9787517 up to 1971.

After that it changed to 9787518.

SD pickup. Icould not find a new one of these across the past 3 months, so got a ebay melling 54-F-DS with the regular big tube pickup.

That SD pick up looks like it would be restrictive - maybe it's an optical illusion

I bought a mellings 60psi pump and did the mods with the smaller checkball and the washer shim behind the spring. I also added the 1/4" thick bottom plate from NightMare performance.

My pump now shows 80 psi almost all the time now. I put in a really thin oil and got it down to 70psi hot. No idea why its 20 psi higher. I guess I will just live with it, betten then too low.

What ? not sure what you are talking about. But no pump I modify ever gets the bottom plate they come with. They get a 1/4" thick precision ground steel plate with straight holes so I can use a 1/8" steel strap to secure the custom pickup I make myself.
The whole point of that picture is to notice just how thick the iron is around the boss for the pickup tube. Its VERY thick with enough material to drill out for a 1" Ford pickup tube.
Then I will buy a Melling select pump and swap out the gears because those gears are not iron, but steel and coated.
I will end up with a pump FAR better than any Precision Pump, Butler pump or any other pump other than a Luhn pump, which are the best.( maybe a Titan ? but not sure) The folks at Luhn are one of the people who taught me how to modify my pumps.
Why I bought this HOOF pump ? You can not find them new anymore. Only the Melling pumps and there is not enough iron and the hole is not centered anyway. So they are unusable for my needs.

I would be careful choosing what oil pump shaft you run with your new oil pump. I can't recommend a Melling oil pump shaft. Mine just barely made it through engine break in before it decided it wanted to split.

What is the point of buying the select pump if you toss the gears?

If I'd known about the Luhn pump, I'd have bought one for my current engine. It's the closest thing to a hi-volume pump for a Pontiac without having to pony up for a Titan.

http://www.luhnperformance.com/pontiac.html
https://www.bopengineering.com/A_Pon..._Related.shtml

https://butlerperformance.com/i-2445...OxPEL9E4SZa_HK