I just finished putting together my 350 TPI in my 91 camaro. I primed the oil system with a metal rod with a tab on the end attached to a drill. I saw oil spurting out of the hole right below the dist. hole. Now I have the distributor in, and it starts. But the oil pressure guage drops all the way down when I turn the starter, and stays at 0 with the engine idling. Also, no oil comes out of the rocker oiling holes. I'm pretty sure that the dist. is engaging the oil pump - are there any other things I can try? I really don't want to pull the engine back out to check the pump. Thanks guys.

 

Did you install the oil pump shaft?

 

I had similar trouble when I installed my new 305, turned out that the pressure sending unit was bad and giving a false signal, try intalling a mechanical gauge in place of the electric one and see what it reads.

 

Yeah, I installed the pump shaft. I wouldn't have been able to prime it if I hadn't.

How high to the RPMS need to be to push oil up and out of the pushrods? I have only had it at idle, and only for a few seconds while checking the timing. The lack of oil pressure has had me a little jumpy. Thanks again.

 

Oil should be coming out of the rockers at idle. A drill spins the oil pump at about 500rpm which would be equal to the motor running at 1000rpm, correct? If your primer didn't prime the valvetrain, which took 2-3 minutes for me, maybe it just hasn't got there yet. How long has the motor run total?

 

I don't remember for sure but, I think a SBC oil pump driveshaft normally has ears that prevent it from trying to come out with the distributor. If the ears were missing (or were never there) the shaft could have lifted out of the oil pump when the priming tool was removed. If it did lift up, it may have missed the oil pump when it went back down and fell into the oil pan (that happened to me on a ford 390 once).
Pull the dist and make sure the shaft is still there.
Check the bottom of the dist shaft for obvious problems.
If the shaft is still there, it's probably just an indication problem.

 

if the valves are lashed right you won't necessarily get oil squirting out the rockers. first thing i'd do is install a mechanical gauge on the engine and see what you have. unless you left a plug or restrictor out it'd be hard to have zero at idle.

 

when installing the bearing for the crank...all it takes is one bearing put on backwards for there to be no oil pressure