That doesn't really make sense to me. Surely the factory would find it far easier to 'redesign' the pan deeper and use a different pickup tube, than to design the windage tray from scratch and then have to manufacture the complicated main bolts with their corresponding smaller mounting bolts. In fact a deeper pan is not really a full redesign, it is the same, just made with longer sides. Didn't the 318-3 truck motor use a bigger pan with the deeper reaching pickup? I'm pretty certain that the windage tray, which was unique to the 340 engines (the race bred engine) was used for just that, to improve oil control by keeping more oil in the pan at higher rpm, and therefore more in line with the 'performance' breeding of that engine. Wasn't for saving money reasons. Chrysler would not have wanted a deeper pan either for ground clearance issues, everything has to have plenty of tolerance when using in passenger cars.
