Should I paint lifter galley?

[Shaggy]

I have stayed out of it just because I don't like to get into flame wars but Yes I did say I paint every motor I build have yet to have one come back because of paint blocking a pickup screen. Hell I have yet to see one that the paint has even started to peal on, that may not be a fair test as the motors I have gone back through are usually at most a season old before it gets stripped down and redone though I have seen a few that have had extended use such as my street car. Now what I have seen in actually several instances is in a "loose" wet sump motor with a high volume pump running for extended high RPM suck a oil pan dry, so while painting doesn't actually add any power the fact that I know my oil will be in the pan coming off a straight (most of my motors are in road race cars) give me allot more comfort plus if I pull a motor failure apart and it has been oil starved that is one less thing I have to worry about. Now as far as drag racing will a street motor ever run at high enough rpm long enough? probably not, but does it hurt to paint it? IMHO, no And I will even post the down side to try and be as fair and truthful to my knowledge, in any motor without a windage system( ie: tray/screen ) it would probably actually cost you power because you have more oil in the pan at any given point creating more actual windage as the crank swings by.

PS: on the ford oiling system, I agree with parts of both peoples statement, the actual passages and amounts through them is better on a Chevy (stock to stock) but the ford oil pump is 10 times better then the Chevy pump(have you ever noticed about 90% of the Chevy "race" pumps are actually the same gerator design as the stock ford?). Now I would take a small journal Windsor with restrictors in it any day over a Chevy block though.