No oil pressure. Fresh engine. Ideas?

[zKars]

Gang:

Time to call on the engine building experts

Finally got to the stage of starting the L28 in a very long term restoration project today. 71 240.

Well it runs great, but with just about no oil pressure. oh god, what have i done....

So, the facts:

Engine

Fresh rebuild, top and bottom. Fresh everything. Including new oil pump.

L28 flat tops, F54 block.

E31 head, larger valves, stage 3'ish cam, nothing radical.

Engine was assembled on stand 15 months ago, and oil pump run with drill and shaft to confirm prime and oil to the head. Everything is great. Engine put in car, but never started until today.

Problem:

Runs great, but oil pressure on stock gauge was observed just above 0. Changed sender. Same thing. Screwed mechanical gauge in engine port. Same.... Barely moves if at all. Think.. What did you do idiot...

Change out new oil pump for used oil pump. Same problem. Oil pump full of oil when removed. It is primed.

Remove cam cover, remove dizzy drive and use drill with shaft into oil pump. CCW rotation, 400 rpm drill. Cam is seeing oil at all holes (internal oiled cam, towers have block off plates), but its just dribbling out of the holes. Pump is turning real easy... Oil filter is full. oil dribbles out of engine port when I remove the sender or mech. gauge.

Did compression test, 150 psi across the board. Engine ran all of 5 minutes initially before decided to shut it off due to the oil pressure.

Block history. F54 block was taken from junkyard zx to machine shop (7+ years ago). Everything was bad. Crank crooked, bores crooked. All was fixed, bored 040 I think, new pistons, rings, crank turned down some, rods sized, undersized bearings supplied. Everything sat disassembled waiting for a car to put it in.

I assembled engine 15 months ago for this project car. Checked ring gaps, and a couple of bearing main and rod clearances with plasti-gauge. What I checked looked great. No I didn't check all the bearings, maybe I should have... My bad.

So, other than the first thing that comes to mind, like HUGE bearing clearances, what other stuff may I have forgotten that would cause this type of issue? Ideas please!

[Diseazd]

When they ground the cam, did they put the plug in the rear of the cam?

[zKars]

Well thanks to you-all I have the solution. Just your virtual presence was enough. Actually I just had to write that out to get my thoughts in order.

There are two oil gallery plugs, one in the back (I put that one in), and one in the front; which I didn't put back in....

Funny how that causes a short circuit for the oil pump right back to the pan.

Easy enough to fix. I'll pretend I'm happy that it was the front one and not the back...... Much messier.

And now we also get to find out just how good that Lubri-plate engine break in stuff is that I used....

[zKars]

Diseazed, ya, I'll check that cam plug too, but I think its good. Thanks for the quick response.

I guess I'm at the age that I need a check list rather than relying on my memory for stuff like this. Tough to admit. That's life....

Jim

[Diseazd]

I screw something up on almost every engine I build...........