There’s barely enough clearance in the crankcase with stock parts, so when aftermarket parts are mixed and matched the result often involves severe interference, unwanted metal-to-metal contact and improper fitment.

Matt Taylor of Black Sheep Racing, a shop out of Indiana that’s working on an Ultra4 car, was kind enough to document his experience in mating a new Canton oil pan to a DSS-built Ford short-block that was beefed up with a stout main-cap support. Taylor is working with a Canton 15-644 oil pan and 15-645 pickup. The 7-quart pan is T-style rear-sump for the small-block Ford to fit in a Fox-body Mustang. It also features Canton’s diamond-shaped, 4-door baffle assembly designed for road racing, which should also help keep oil near the pickup in off-road situations. The pickup is designed to work with either a standard- or high-volume Melling pump and features a 3/4-inch inlet.

Taylor discovered the mounting tab on the pickup needed reshaping to fit on top of the main-cap supports. He also found interference with the cap bolt that mounts the pickup to the pump and the pickup mounting flange. The former was handled by trimming off excess bolt length and the latter was solved by grinding down the flange.

In wrapping up the installation, Tayor shared a couple of other tips. He has separate pickup and return fittings to support an auxiliary cooling system that doesn’t rely on the main oil pump. And he secures the pan with factory load-spreader rails between the pan and cap-screw washers.

The main takeaway from this video is to prefit all crankcase and oil-pan components before final assembly to provide enough time for necessary modifications for proper fitment.