HI,


Where do I position the camshaft when manually priming the oil on a freshened 440 ?

THANKS

You can slowly rotate it a couple times? I want to say Rapid Robert posted some crank degree numbers but I just turn it slowly and watch for oil at the rockers. You really can't miss it as it floods pretty good. Remember to put the drill in reverse.

Yeah Dave onto the reverse thing but there is one spot where the oil holes line up on the cam

When I did my 400, I kept turning the crank until oil started flowing out one head, then turned it until oil flowed out the other. I didn't have an electric drill with enough torque to spin the oil pump, so I used a speeder with a socket on the priming shaft. Since I hadn't thought to put a pan under the engine, I did leave myself with an oil cleanup on the floor.

As you know you want to do as minimal turning as you can. If you are still on dot to dot (6/12 0'clock) which is #6 TDC firing, preoil now to do one bank (I forget which) then back up CCW the dampener 3/4 turn (to #8 TDC firing) & preoil the other bank. As you noted it is the cam position as opposed to strickly the crank position that lines up its cam journal holes to oil the heads so an adv/ret on the cam phasing will change this slightly but get to those 2 points & adj slightly on either side as/if needed till it flows. cut a strip of paper 17.082" to use as a ruler around the dampener to easily go from #6 back to #8.

If two people are available - simply run the drill while slowly turning the crank and observing the oil pressure. When the communication ports are aligned pressure will fall on the gauge and you will hear gurgling then that should dissipate as you fill the passages.

Once you have gone 2 full revolutions the valve train will be pre-lubed.

You can turn the engine over as much as you want since you have oil pressure.
The theory of washing the pre-lube (moly paste) off the cam doesn't hold much water. If you have the popular breakin oils you won't damage a thing.

Plus this method pre-fills hydraulic lifters.

I remove the spark plugs and then prime the motor with a electric drill motor and remove one valve cover, I normally remove the passenger side(here American made left hand driven cars) before priming and then slowly rotate the motor over in the normal clockwise direction and watch for oil coming out between the rocker arms, once I see that I stop rotating the cranks for 20 to 40 seconds and then stop the priming to reinstalled that valve cover and remove the other side valve cover and rotate the crankshaft again while priming until I see the other side start to oil and stop the rotation of the crankshaft long enough to fully oil that side and then button the top end up and go from there
IHTHs
BTW, not all cams have the same size oil hole in the camshafts and I'm not sure all of them are index exactly the same either to TDC

Ahhhh sorry guys I forgot to say it has indy heads with the rear oil line feed

Don't think it matters then, right? Don't those lines come out of pipe fittings on rear of block?

Yes but that is straight off the rear cam bearing that has one hole

Unless a custom block, that oil comes straight from galleys. Getting full press when pumps pushing through system.

OK so should not matter where the cam is ?

Not as far as I know. That rear oil hole is to bring oil up to feed rear cam journal.

I thought I remembered you had Indy heads. I didn't want to say anything because I thought this might be a different setup. Some guys run restrictors in those oil lines coming from the block. Prime it and find out? It might be too much! Doesn't matter where the cam is with external oiling.

OK thanks. With the oil line restrictors I will check it out , I notice that some guys run both lines from one outlet a and the other is a pressure, we have always run one from each. This has got change oil volume yeah ?

It doesn't matter if you run the lines from a tee or one to each hole. Those two 1/8" NPT ports are tapped to the main gallery. I run a tee because my oil pressure gauge comes off of one. Did you have a problem? Isn't it the middle of your race season right now?

I use a .040 restrictor with Harland Sharp roller rockers on all of the 440-1 heads I've used with good success

After giveing it some thought, Transman is right, 2 full turns ain't gonna come close to wiping enough lube off of the lobes to cause a problem. As said with you haveing the head valvetrain(s) being oiled full time from the oil sender port at the top rear of the block you can preoil at any crank/cam clocking. that's even better yet as nothing needs to be moved at all & you can set the dist for fireup. Good luck on fireup.

Primed good, 85+psi straight away and all rockers flowed oil .

Cheers