I am having a problem with my '64 300 v8. The engine is in my '64 skylark 4-speed car. The layout of the engine as I built it is as follows: bored .050 with 350 buick TRW forged pistons, double row timing chain, high volume oil pump kit, larger 231 v6 oil pickup tube, Crower custom ground solid lifter cam, adjustable pushrods to set valve lash (no hole through the pushrods), stock rocker arms, Crower double valve springs and retainers, crank turned .010-.010 and all bearings miced to verify proper clearances (all around .0015 if I remember correctly) Here is the problem--ever since I built the engine, the oil pressure has been lower than what I thought it should be--around 8 psi at idle when the engine is hot and around 35 psi max when it is hot. I have a '65 engine built the same way, but with a hydraulic Poston cam in it and stock rockers and it has alot more oil pressure--15 PSi at idle. I never worried about the lower pressure on my '64 since it was in acceptable limits. I always had problems with the stock rocker arms wearing out, so here recently I spent the bucks and bought a set of T&D roller rockers and a custom made set of Manton Pushrods and put on it. I always knew roller rockers bled off more oil around the bearing surface, but never knew it would cause a problem. Now that I have them on the car, they function and fit great, but when the car is up to temperature, the low oil pressure light will come on when I let out the clutch and the rpm dips down to 500. Anyone have any ideas what I can do to get my oil pressure back up to an acceptable limit with all of the components I have? The only suspicion I have is the solid lifters. They have a feed hole in the side of them just like a hydraulic lifter has and have a small disc that fits in the top of the lifter for the pushrod seat, held in by a snap ring (much like a hydraulic lifter). The pushrod seat disc has no hole in it, but it fits loosely in the top of the lifter. Could I be bleeding off oil pressure through that feed hole in the side of the lifter and out around the edges of that loose fitting disc in the top of the lifter? Any ideas are appreciated. Oh, and the engine has less than 500 miles on it.
I actually put a different timing cover on it when I built the engine. I found a really good one off of a '66 engine that had thrown a rod. The one on my car was gouged up behind the water pump where a water pump had failed on it and the oil pump cavity had some scaring in it. The one I put on my car was in excellent shape--actually the best one I had ever seen--and much better than the one on my '65 that has much better oil pressure than this one. Just for clarity, both cars have a high volume oil pump kit in them. They both have the same spring in the relief valve as well. My '65 will peg the gage if you rev it up cold and will hold a solid 45 psi crusing down the highway, and has about 18 PSI idling. My '64 will never get over 40 no matter if it is cold or hot and at best has had 8 psi idling. Now with the roller rockers it has almost none at idle. Even crazier is the '65 has about 50k miles on the engine since I built it and the '64 has less than 500 miles.
oil pressure I have an ISKY solid lifter cam in my 300 and with 0w30 mobil1 in it @ idle warm it has between 8 and 10 psi oil press. with out a high vol. pump and 65 psi when reved up. i run thin oil for less windage when its wound up. What grade oil you using?? You could switch to late model lifters that oil through the pushrods and plug the pasages that oil the shafts, or restrict the pasages and keep the lifterso No:
0wnothing weight snake oil for one, and let me guess, a Fram oil filter. These are the two biggest culprits over a worn tming cover/too much end play on the pump gears. Could also have a bad pressure relief spring and/or bypass valve sticking. Should have a tadpole valve installed instead of the stocker.
When you say you checked clearances did that include cam bearings too? You can lose a whole lot of oil around a cam with loose/worn bearings. I've found this out the hard way and had to pull an engine back apart to install cam bearings.
I am running Mobil-1 15W-50 oil in the engine and have a purolator pure-one (one of the really good $6 ones) on it. I didn't check the cam bearing clearances. I hope that isn't it. I have pushrods with no hole in them and it oils through the passages in the head. What is a tadpole? I have the stock pressure relief piston, but one of the high pressure springs in it. I guess my first step is going to be to tear into the oil pump/pressure relief valve and go from there. That is the easiest and is on the outside of the engine. I am going to take out the distributor and put my drill on the oil pump. With the valve cover off, I can take a flashlight and look down at the lifters and see if I am loosing too much oil around the top of them. That will be an easy check without pulling the intake off. If I don't get anywhere with that, then I guess I am going to have tear into the engine.
Well I had the same problem with a 350 I built. Low/No pressure. Try using SAE50 oil. This solved my problem. 25 psi at idle and 70 psi at operating speed. Believe it or not changing the spring in the oil pump slightly boosted my low end pressure as well. The only drawback to using straight 50w is extremely high oil pressure until it warms up. I am usually at 90 to 100 psi until the motor gets warmed up. Also no cold weather driving should be done with that weight of oil.
If you tear it back down there is a procedure for drilling the block and putting the oil pressure line into the back of the motor instead of at the oil pump. I am told there is as much as 10-15 psi difference in pressure.
I wanted to update everyone and let you know I fixed the low oil pressure problem on my '64 300. The problem turned out to be caused by the new T&D roller rockers I put on the engine. They flow way too much oil out the ends onto the roller tip. I fixed this by machining small aluminum orifices that press into the oil feed hole in each head. The orifice size I ended up with was 1/6". Running the oil pump with a drill, am still getting plenty of oil at all of the rockers. Before, I could do the same test and it would flood the top of the cylinder head in a couple of seconds with the drill running at about 1/3 speed. So if anyone decides to use the T&D rockers on their 215 or 300, they work great, but be sure to restrict the oil flow to them or you will have a huge drop in overall engine oil pressure.
