Hey guys i just finished a cam swap tonight. Everything is good and it started right up. But i ran the car for about 30 seconds and there is no oil coming up the push rods to the rockers/heads. I am thinking that it shouldn't take that long to get oil up there.

I have good oil pressure at about 50-55 which is what it was before the cam swap. The rockers are pretty much adjusted. They need final adjusting but they should be close enough. also I pulled a push rod out and and it wasn't clogged and there was plenty of oil on the bottom of the push rod.

My question, is this normal? should i be getting oil in the rockers/heads right away? If this is not normal what could be the problem? any ideas of what I shold try?

Thanks
Tom

 

you set the rockers too tight. readjust them, usually when they are tight they tend too not release oil. loosen all 8 of them a little bit and then rev the motor ever so slightly. Stupid question but when you reinstalled the oil pump did you check everything out?

 

What rpm are you running it at? Are the lifters new or old? If new, did you soak them in oil before installing them? You might give it just a little more time. The last place oil gets is out the top of the pushrods. Hopefully you used some lube on the parts so they will be ok until oil gets flowing.

 

I forgot about that because most people do not soak the lifters even when using the old ones!!

 

OK. i will check the rockers, but i don't think that they are too tight. Because they are clacking a little bit when the car runs. I didn't take the oil pump out.

It was idlingat about 800 rpm. then i gave it gas up to about 1700 rpm for about 10 seconds. the lifters are not new. I used a ton of lube on the cam. Should i have used lube on other parts too? I didn't soak them in oil. I didn't think that i needed to because they were not new.

Should i take my engine apart and soak the lifters? How long should it take for the lifters to fill with oil and pump up?

I am just scared that i am going to destroy my engine.

thanks
Tom

 

If you want to take it all aprt again just to soak the lifters be my guest If your oil pressure shows 55psi and there is no oil going to the top of the motor unscrew one of the rockers and then see if there is any oil in the pushrod or if the bottom of the pushrod has cam lube in it and it is hindering the flow..

 

Did you put assembly lube on both ends of the pushrods like they recommend?

If so then start it up and run it for a minute and see what happens. I don't think your going to hurt anything running 1 minute at idle.

I am just estimating but i would say on initial startup it'll take about 20 seconds for the first ones to start dribbling a little oil, and up to a minute for all of them. If you have assembly lube on the ends it won't clog them but definitly will cause some resistance to the oil flow causing them to take a little longer initially to let oil out.

The rockers for cyl 1-2 took the longest to start feeding oil. Then after the inital start up they are still the last ones to pump up but don't take anywhere near as long as they did that first time.

Most of your oil goes to your main bearings because the journals need to have a film of oil to ride on. The pushrods are just supposed to get a little flow through them, they don't actually see very much of the pressure because they just require oil, not oil under pressure.

 

When i put my motor together it took it a min or two to get oil to the top of the motor. I had soaked the lifters but the motor sat for maybe 2 weeks before being fired.I just let it idle and dumped oil straight on the rockers until they lubed themselves.

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I didn't know i was supposed to put assembly lube on each end of the push rods because i didn't. I will let it idle a little longer and see what happens. Hopefully it will start to pump up. Any more comments or ideas are welcome.

thanks again
Tom

 

first off thanks for everyones help. The problem was that i didn't let it run long enough. after about a minute to a minute and half it started to oil up.

thanks
Tom

 

Glad it worked out for you