As I stated before, this project was started in order to come up with a piece that can benefit all of us Pontiac racers. A lot of us started with stock engines and have increased power to the point of putting a lot of strain on the stock block. Maybe some of us should have started with the IA block, but we didn't. Hindsight is always 20/20. For those of us that are in the position of making what we have work, I think we need something like this. I needed to start somewhere, so we made this girdle/support and put it out there for all of your comments and criticism. All your comments and recommendations were appreciated. Some comments got heated and some didn't, but who cares. We all have a common goal and that's what counts. So now we need to discuss where we go from here.
Right now we have a 3 main girdle/support that fits under a stock pan. We could easily tie it into the existing extra bolt holes and and basically have a 4 bolt setup. I think this is a valid improvement. Instead of a simple spacer, we would machine a part to slide over the 4 bolt studs, then drop the girdle/support over that and torque it down. It would still fit under the stock type oil pan.
The next step would to tie it into the pan rail as some have suggested. One piece would slide over the main studs and bolt to the rail, then the support would slide over that and tie everything together. This of course would require pan modifications. This would be the ultimate setup and would tie the main cap to the pan rails as some of you have desired to do.
I think that we have decided at this point to go ahead and do the 4 bolt type, so we should have a prototype of that soon. We will post pictures as soon as we get it done. I would like to have some input as to the necessity of a pan rail type. If there is enough interest, we will work up a prototype and get some unput on that.
Some have suggested a 4 or 5 main type. I'd like some more discussion on that. Also, the pan rail type support will be a 3 piece design. A one piece design is very possible, but would be more expensive to produce. Same thing with the 4 bolt type. That would be a 7 piece design. So I need some discussion on the advantages of a one piece unit.
I check the links on the Buick type and saw that it was totally different than what wew have to work with. I also checked the Pontiacheaven site, but saw nothing there.
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