I just installed my new engine(87 305) which was rebuilt which some different components with my father. My problem is this..while priming the engine with a drill, we noticed that the drill was actually lugging from some type of friction. We ended up dropping the oil pan and replacing the oil pump extension which connects to the dristributor because we were a little bit iffy about the current one. After replacing this we tried for a second time to see if it spun better. When their is no oil in the pan, the oil pump spins very freely, but when there is oil in the pan, the drill seems to have a lot of friction. The pump is a high pressure pump newly bought and we also had a pressure guage set up. The guage read about 60 pounds but the drill seemed to be under a lot of stress. Also, within the first few spins with the drill, a gurgling sound was heard. I don't know if anyone has any opinions if this is normal for a high pressure pump opposed to a regular oil pump, but I don't know whether to continue with the distributor or if there is a concern to replace the pump. Any input would be appreciated!

 

that's normal, it's very hard on a hand drill to run your oil pump. A lot of people burn out their drill doing that.

 

the drill will get lugged down when you build oil pressure, thats perfectly normal.
i forget what the horse power requirements are to spin the oil pump, but it seems like i have read around 5 HP at 1000 RPM & around 20~25 HP at 5000 with 70 degree 10w30 oil with the relief pressure set to like 40 PSI.
i think you should be good to go.

i don't know about the gurgling sound other than some trapped air pockets or maybe you had the pump turning backwards. if you did have the pump turning backwards, it would not have built pressure.

 

all you need to do to prime the pump is fill tha pan with oil. if you're unsure about the quality of your work then you should prime the oil system or if you never used any sorty of assembly lube, otherwise priming the system does nothing other than make you feel better.

 

I know you like to stick to your guns about not priming an engine but you can find problems before firing up an engine for the first time. Friend of mine built a 283 recently and the o-ring on the oil filter adapter (had been changed over to the spin on style) wasn't seated properly which spit oil everywhere. A month later he built a 350 and didn't prime it. After no oil pressure was showing after quite a bit of cranking, we pulled the dizzy and put the drill to the oil pump. Finally got oil pressure after a while which was kind of strange. The 283 primed instantly while the 350 had some troubles.