Decided to pull the oil pump drive gear out of my rebuilt 440 (haven't run it yet) and use a priming rod to prime the oil pump. Put a mechanical gauge on the back port and let her rip (counter clockwise).

For the first two or three seconds, there was nothing on the gauge and the drill spun freely. Then, the gauge started to climb and you could hear resistance in the drill. The gauge peaked at 60 PSI before my cordless drill started to struggle. If I understand correctly, the pressure building is something that might happen due to the cam and crank not also spinning. Is this accurate? I'd hate to fire this bad boy up and have the oil pressure spike to 70-80 psi.

Also, just so I'm correct about this, with #1 cylinder at TDC (not necessarily dependent on which stroke), the distributor slot in the oil drive gear should be parallel with the cam, front to back. Right?

The block was turned over a couple times while the distributor was in, I removed the drive gear and hopefully put it back in the correct orientation. I guess it's not too much trouble to pop it back out if it's off. Any potential in damage if it is off?

Thanks a lot.

-Pat

You're all good, unless you wanted to verify oil to each rocker shaft, then you'd turn crank over a couple of times slowly while drill is priming. The slot being parallel to crank-cam when #1 is at tdc is good. Even if not lined up, you'd just have to index the wires for rotor position at cap.

Whats wrong with 70-80psi on a cold motor start? Thats pretty typical.

I have 80 psi on cold start. Most Hi volume pumps do.

If it hasn't been run yet, at least on the small blocks, everyone seems to say that you should prime it will a drill, rotate the crank 90*, and repeat until the top end has been oiled well

You're good so far ex I would continue to prime it w the drill as a helper SLOWLY turns the crank w a socket/breaker bar until you hit the 2 spots in the 720 degrees of crank revolution of several degrees each where each heads' valvetrain is being (pre)oiled. Put the marks on 10BTDC making sure you are on the compression stroke (pull valve cover & both of #1 valves should not be moving) and you'd want both valve covers off anyway to make sure both heads are getting preoiled then mockup the inter shaft/dist so it puts the rotor per the factory plug wire diagram which makes for neater wire routing and duplicates the factory routing which decreases the chances of a future mistake. EDIT forgot,then turn the dist housing to where the vac can is approx where you want it and the reluctor vane is lined up w the magnet slot which will fire it at ~ 8 or 9 BTDC which is perfect for startup and you'd want the rotor reasonably close to the underside of the #1 cap terminal and since the dist triggers when the reluctor vane just moves away from the magnet the rotor will move a bit CCW (from it's current position) before it fires and rotor phasing (if you have vac adv) will move the rotor CW (at the point when it fires), for reference if you check rotor phasing later on w your timing light but first things first.

I have a question about the need for priming. I have a new motor, it's been broken-in and dyno'ed already, but hasn't run in 2 years. It was oil fogged and stored in a heated garage since. How important or beneficial would priming it be, versus just pulling the coil wire and cranking it until it gets pressure? It's 9.5 CR, 440, mild hydraulic cam, nothing fancy. Thanks!

It would be best to reprime it because after two yearts all the oil would have drained off everything back to the pan.

Spin the drill and have a helper slowly turn over the crank. Might as well verify oil flow to the rockers while you're there.

intragration, even after sitting for two years, your bearings will still have oil on them, so if you do spin it over a bit I would say you will be fine. However it's not that big a deal to reprime it either...