hey guys and gals I was just wondering what a windage tray is. thanks

 

Basically........It is a piece of sheet metal installed under the crankshaft that keeps oil away from the crankshaft at high engine speeds.

 

I don't know a lot about this, but will take a stab at it. The windage tray is bolted up to the bottom of the engine block just below the crakshaft and it's purpose is to reduce the turbulence or wind created by the rotating crankshaft and parts. It can actually add a few horsepower at higher rpm's if I understand it right. I am sure someone with a lot more knowledge than I will chime in.

 

thanks a lot

 

Here is a stock windage tray in a '99 Vortec 350. This kind of stock tray can be installed in your Gen1 engine with the extended main cap bolts and nuts, and tray. Most salvage yards will have them, and as mentioned, they will keep oil from splashing up on the crank.

 

http://www.circletrack.com/techartic...ech/index.html

At high rpm, oil tends to "rope" or windaround a crankshaft, causing big power losses.

A windage tray normally separates the crank from the pan sump almost completely. It allows what drains into the pan to access the sump (either throughshaped louvers or a screen), but makes it difficult for that oil, onceit is in the sump, to splash back onto the crank. It also helps prevent those ropes of oil from forming in the first place

A scraper is a precisely shaped piece of sheetmetal that normally attaches at the pan rail and uses narrow slots that allow the crank's counterweights & rod ends to spin past without contacting the scraper. The scraper catches oil off the crank and allows it to drain into the bottom of the pan.


Both windage tray and crank scraper can be seen in the image of my engine below. the parts are inexpensive and while the HP gain is small and varies with RPM (more windage at higher rpm means more hp lost there) there is some evidence that a few poines can be found even at moderate engine speeds. - these things are so cheap, that to me, its hardly worth building an engine and not using a scraper and a windage tray anymore

 

While your at it..., a related item is a lifter valley splash shield. This goes under the intake manifold and keeps hot oil from splashing up on the bottom of the intake. These are extremely cheap to fabricate (I did my own out of galvanized flue vent pipe), but commercial unit are available.

This is not to be confused with the metal pan that GM rivets to the bottom of the intake that has exactly the opposite intent. The intent of these shields is to keep the hot exhaust gases in the intake crossover from cooking (and coking) the oil in the lifter valley.