Addressing the Coyote’s Achilles’ Heel with a Billet Oil Pump Gears Install

Ask Ford fans about the venerable Coyote motor and they’ll likely tell you that it was forged by the hands of the Man Himself and passed down on wings of angels. While that is surely stretching it, in all honesty, when FoMoCo released the Coyote in 2011, it was a game changer. Up until that point, the only method to a 400hp stock Mustang was forced induction. OK, so the 2000 Cobra R might have been underrated at 385 hp, but that was the only naturally aspirated Mustang with close to 400 hp from the factory. That’s not to say that the older modular motors aren’t worthy of their acclaim, but it’s no secret that prior to the Coyote, if you wanted to make big power without dropping huge money on your modular motor, a power-adder was the answer.

Oil pump failures aren’t new to the Mustang

“If you plan on significantly raising the rev ceiling or increasing the power on your Coyote, especially with a supercharger, then billet oil pump gears are more than just cheap insurance. They’re a must,” says Mike Schropp, Engine Development Supervisor, Livernois Motorsports.

Oil pump gear problems aren’t necessarily new to the Mustang world. High-horsepower, high-revving 3V and 4V modular motors also experienced similar problems, but generally to a lesser extent in normally aspirated form because of their lower rev ceilings. Simply put, lightly modified modulars ran out of breath before the oil pump gears became a problem. But failures on supercharged modulars weren’t uncommon, as their higher power levels and increased load on the crank worsened oil pump-killing harmonics (more on that later).

But modulars aside, the Coyote quickly earned a reputation for oil pump problems because unlike its predecessors, the Coyote had the capability of making enough power and spinning high enough rpm that problems with the oil pump gears arose.

Schropp explains, “The Coyotes spin a lot more rpm than the modulars, and big power levels are easily reached, so oil pump problems were more prevalent.”

The problem and the fix

As gearheads pushed the envelope with the Coyote both in rpm and power, it was only a matter of time before stock parts began to fail. As luck would have it, the stock oil pump gears were some of the first OEM parts to bite the dust.

Schropp says, “We worked extensively with the engineers at Ford to track back the oil pump gear failures, but their testing didn’t produce such problems.”

After copious amounts of research, Livernois realized that the problems weren’t apparent with Ford’s testing procedures because the power levels and rpm limits weren’t nearly as extreme as seen in the aftermarket.

“The inner oil pump gear is lugged off the crankshaft, which means the crankshaft harmonics are passed through oil pump gears and into the balancer,” says Schropp.

OK, so the OEM oil pump gears can’t hang with high rpm and big power, but what about the fix?

“We designed a bulletproof set of billet aluminum oil pump gear replacements that feature a computer-controlled, precision-hardened finish, are hand-deburred and finished, and have tolerances measured and blueprinted to within plus or minus 0.0005 inch,” says Schropp.

The high-quality Livernois Motorsports billet oil pump gears are available as freestanding gears, or for those who don’t want to split their own oil pumps open, Livernois offers an exchange program that allows enthusiasts to trade their stock pump and gears for a new pump with the billet units already installed. As one might guess, as power levels and rpm increase, so do the harmonics of the crankshaft. As these harmonic levels increased, ultimately the powdered metal oil pump gears proved too brittle to survive the abuse. “Back in 2011 we began seeing problems with the stock powdered metal oil pump gears shattering, especially on supercharged applications that utilized an inexpensive, aftermarket crank damper,” Schropp says.

Livernois Motorsports not only dug deeper in order to find the root of the problems, but the in-house team of techs worked with FoMoCo to find a solution.

As mentioned, most of the failures were found in supercharged applications that utilized inexpensive balancers.

“Canceling harmonics is important, so in addition to the upgraded billet oil pump gears, a quality crank damper is also recommended,” Schropp says. “Increased crankshaft harmonics aren’t the only problem. Some supercharged applications add so much load on the snout of the crank that it actually causes the crank to move just enough that the oil pump gears can bind, only worsening the problem.”

But Ford changed that with the new 5.0. It was high revving and insanely efficient, it responded well to mods, and it was capable of big power without boost. In fact, bolt-ons and a tune were worth as much as 70-80 hp at the wheels. Heck, 500 rwhp or more was achievable with a stout rotating assembly, ported heads, a Cobra Jet or Boss intake manifold and accompanying throttle-body, and big cams that allowed the Coyote to breathe at 8,000 rpm. Of course, an efficient motor responds well to boost, and tossing 10 psi on the new 5.0 is a recipe for an easy 600 rwhp or more.

But for everything the new Coyote is, it certainly isn’t without its faults.

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