Engine Reversal and EFI

[Dave Williams]

-> A marine mechanic I spoke to said the only difference between a CW
-> and a CCW motor was the cam and the starter - makes sense.  He also
-> mentioned that the reverse motors usually had a hotter cam since they
-> didn't make as much power as their normal rotation cousins.

 The distributor drive gear will have to be changed to maintain oil pump
direction.  We ran into that with an Isky two-gear cam drive on a small
block Chevy.  For reverse rotation, you'll have to do something about
the direction of the water pump rotation.  Nowadays it'd be easy to use
a serpentine pump on most engines; I don't know how they did it in the
old days.

 Engines with offset piston pins would work okay, though you'd probably
want to swap left for right to have both engines the same.

 Reverse rotation engines were a common question in Smokey Yunick's
column in Circle Track.  He claimed everything from "not a good idea" to
"can't be done", though it's interesting you can actually get reverse
rotation Chevys, Fords, and Chryslers from the manufacturer for marine
purposes.  Yunick also had a problem with the oilway drilling locations
"not bring right" for reverse rotation on the small block Chevy.
Considering every one of the crank oilways is drilled as non-optimally
as possible to start with, reverse rotation ought to be a big help for
oiling.

 For a real high performance application you'd want to take a close look
at the intake manifolding and windage tray, but it shouldn't be a big
deal.