Finally started up my new hemi build and am a bit concerned with low oil pressure!! The pressure is around 18psi at 900rpm idle and only goes to about 25psi at 3000rpm. These are my specs:

Indy 426-1 Legend Heads with no oil restrictors
Indy roller rockers with Indy shafts
Megablock Hemi bored to 4.375
Eagle stroker crank stroked to 4.5
Eagle Rods 7.1
Diamond pistons with 10.5 to 1 compression
Solid roller cam
Solid roller lifters 829-1
Smith brothers pushrods
Milodon deep sump oil pan
Milodon high volume oil pump with internal sump

Should I put the oil restrictors in the heads?
Is there a bigger issue hiding its ugly head?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

On my recent Hemi build the machinist bushed the lifter bores to prevent too much bleed off of pressure. I was also using solid roller lifters. It cost some but he insisted this was a necessary step. I can't complain about the pressure. 55 at idle and 70 at 2000 using Brad Penn 20W/50.

It sounds like you have aoil pressure problem that needs fixing right now, don't run the motor any more until you get it fixed Are those Comp Cams solid roller lifters a straight body or do they have a machined band in the middle of them? If machined try pulling the distributor and oil pump drive and use a priming rod and drill motor to prime the motor, I would remove all the spark plugs to make turning the motor over easier and the plumb a mechanical oil pressure gauge where you can watch it and slowly turn the motor over by hand (get a helper if needed ) while priming it. If it gets better and then worst oil pressure while rotating the motor the lifters are probally the cause Let us know what you find please, it will help others on here later

I definitely am not running the motor until I get to the bottom of what the cause is. The lifters are straight body type. Should I still take out the distributor etc. and prime the motor? Should I take off the valve covers (which is not easy by the way) and see if I have an excess amount of oil or any oil at all?

Main and rod bearing type and clearance would be helpful info... also rod side clearance may matter a bit.

Also there is a slight chance it is an oil filter problem... cheap to try another and cut open the old one to see what it caught.

I'll have to dig out the information on the bearing type and clearances. I built the motor a couple years back. Finally got to putting it into the car this year.

Changed the oil filter tonight. No change in pressure. Checked the filter I took off and it was really clean!!

That low sounds like a galley plug missing, or a broken pickup, or the pickup is flat on the bottom of the pan.

You need those resrictors under the rocker arms shafts. Both intake and exhaust. Indy sells the kit for that reason. Your problem should go away after that. You're flooding the heads w/o the restrictors.

It could be a galley plug. I did double check and make sure that I had them all plugged but you never know. Also, if I did miss one of the galley plugs, wouldn't the oil pressure be near zero all the time? I don't think it would ever build any pressure but I don't know for sure.

The pickup is a Milodon pickup and is designed to go with the Milodon oil pan. It has the little u-shaped piece of metal on the bottom of it that prevents it from going all the way to the bottom of the pan.

Anybody know if the oil restrictors need to be in the Indy Heads or is OK to run without them? Anbody have any experiences with the Indy Aluminum Hemi Heads (426-1 Legend Heads).

Thanks Sammy you answered my question before I posted it. Man your good!!

I do have the kit. It just didn't seem like a good idea to "restrict" oil. Anyway the kit contains three sets. One set of with a "big" hole. One set with a "medium" hole. One set with "no" hole. I'm guessing that I don't want to use the one with the no hole unless I am oiling with the push rods which I am not. Should I use the ones with the big hole or the medium hole?

If the restrictors don't cure it, make sure the relief valve in the oil pump isn't hung partially open. If you didn't tear down the new pump before you installed it, there could be some machining debris hanging the valve open.

Kevin

Oil through pushrods? I had a noisy B-motor with hyd. roller and .080 hole oil through pushrods. Changed to .040 oil through and quieted the motor! I also restricted oil to the shafts.

Brad

The clearances could NOT be off enough for this to happen. The motor has a serious internal oil leak somewhere, assuming the gauge is right. Might be the rocker restrictors, or as someone else said, a missing galley plug somewhere

Update:

I put the oil restrictors in and it did not seem to make any difference. Thinking that it might be the oil pressure gauge, I then tried a couple of different sending units I had with no difference. Still not convinced that I left any oil galley plugs out, I then hooked up a mechanical gauge and have 70psi pressure. It turns out it was the oil pressure gauge the entire time. I honestly don't know if adding the oil restrictors improved the situation or not? I can tell you that I am not going to take them back out to find out!!! Thanks for all of the help and the suggestions on what it might have been.

Got it fixed just in time to park it for winter.

Check the plugs at each end of the rocker shafts.