[DeTomaso] 10 qt Oil Pan-long

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

What I think I know: when Boss engines came out in the very late '60s, Ford 
found that with the rpm capabilities from mechanical cams, oil didn't drain 
back fast enough into the pans through the two tiny return ports in each 
Cleveland head, holding much of the oil up top and running the pan momentarily dry. 
MIke Cook once mentioned that some 3-1/2 qts of oil might be up top at high 
rpms, leaving only 1-1/2 qts in the pan for the crank. So the typical factory 
response- don't-spend-any-real-money-to-fix-it was to recommend overfilling the 
std pan by a quart- thus a stock '5-quart' pan got 6 qts, and rod throwing 
lessened. Note there are three different possible "stock" Ford pans for a 351C, all 
holding the exact same volume of oil.
When enlarged 8-qt pans for the 351C in a Pantera showed up, the 'std 
overfill' for high rpm use became 10 quarts. FWIW, I've always run 8-1/2 qts in our 
17-yr-old 6500-rpm-limit engine- lately, with a remote filter & oil-to-water 
heat exchanger with remote oil thermostat, all plumbed with dash-6 lines. The 
stock dipstick shows "full" under these conditions.

As for the dipstick- initially, Panteras got std front-engine Mustang 
dipsticks, but since one has to remove the engine screen and grope around far up at 
the front of the engine to find & return a front-mount stick, owners simply 
weren't checking their oil, and warranty costs increased. So Ford did a change to 
braze-modify Mustang sticks and add a tubing guide so rear access for oil 
checking was easier- hence the first TSB (May '72- bulletin 1, article 4) that 
adds a long flexible dipstick. Some of the first few modified sticks (done by an 
unnamed outside contractor) were done to the wrong length and installed in 
some Panteras, so a second TSB (March '73- bulletin 5, article 34) specifies 
exactly 38 inches tip-to-stop. Also, occasionally one of the braze-modified 
sticks breaks from vibration and unskilled gas station mechanics "fix" it- to the 
wrong length. 
One wrong-length stick with a  really sloppy braze-job (so I think it was l
ocally repaired) showed up in a Nor-Cal Pantera some time ago and caused much 
yelling & arm-waving between the owner and a local engine builder before they 
thought to check the length- which was way-short. The poor engine had 10 qts of 
oil in a stock pan, and all the seals were leaking!
Finally, since all Pantera-specific "big pans" only extend the sump 
horizontally and do not lower it, std 38" dipsticks are inherently calibrated- not by 
1-qt/2-qt volumes but by 'low' and 'full'. Cheers- J DeRyke