sorry so long, not as sharp as i use to be, my son n law bought a 71 rr 383, big big can and no coverter(dies when put in gear)heads shaved with shims under rockers, so we ordered a 284 cam, bought a set of rebuit 906 heads from indy( i know).yesterday i took it apart and sure enough shimmed, pass side rocker shaft holes was at the top(upside down), and i noticed 15 0f the push rods have holes thru them like chevys, motor was very clean, got it back together and set the rpm,s @ 3500 for 15 minutes, then dropped it to 950. noticed it had 10 psi oil pressure(aftermarket mech gauge) don,t know what it was before we took it apart, racing eng it moves very little, would these open push rods cause this? and what kelp it from blowing up? i,ve only saw solid push rods in stock eng, again sorry but any help needed

Unless the lifters have oiling holes too, then it's not an issue.

If the lifters do, then possibly that is your issue. 10 Psi is on the low side, but still above spec, barely. What weight oil are you running?

I prefer to run 10w30 myself.

we put in a new hyd mp 284 cam, it came with lifters, we used castrol gtx 20w50 oil, I know it can,t live long on that pressure, thanks for your reply, anyone else got any ideas, 70 something lookers, think this might have ppl scratching there head

At 20w50 I'd expect to see more pressure at idle, unless you have some real loose bearing clearances. Sorry I can't offer more.

thanks, im going to change the push rods to the solid ones, I never watched the oil pressure during cam break in, don,t see how it stayed together

hi
any chance the fuel pump is putting gas in the oil ?

bad diaphram ?

Mopar always stated the 10 lbs oil pressure per 1,000 rpm was enough. I've had some motors live a lot of miles on 10 psi when they were at hot idle. That said, it usually left me being a bit nervous.

A lot of low oil pressure problems were caused by excessive cam & rod side clearance. Gene

we changed the oil before we fired it up after the cam change, understand the clearances, this engine looks new inside, all the gaskets was reusable except we did replace the head gaskets and valley pan, anyone ever have push rods with holes in a 383?

Start the engine again. Does the oil pressure go up with rpm?

If so, hop in and hit the road.

If not, dig into it to find the problem.

yes to about 15 lbs @ 3500 rpms

What Feets said & 15 (confirmed with a good gauge) ain't gonna cut it. not sure where the prob is but I would definitely dig in. not sure if the additional flow from the oil thru pushrods is the cause or not (I'm thinking not) but that (might) be the first thing I'd swap & check further on that situation (& check preload while you are at it but that is unrelated to the psi).

changed push rods, now got 50 psi @ idle cold, thanks for the help