Hey everyone - newbie here and am building my first FE motor but I need some engine help. I have a newly assembled 390 with 428CJ heads and when priming the engine with oil shaft and drill (intake only loosely bolted down and valve covers off), I noticed the stream of oil coming from first lifter gallery (front of engine) is powerful enough to go through the 4th and 5th intake runners and flood the drivers side head and valve cover. The oil valley pan is designed with cut-away to allow this to happen, but it seems the oil returns in the 428CJ heads I installed arent big enough to handle this much flow. So oil just pours over the edge of my covers. I am sure that if I were to leave it that way that soaking the valve guides with that much oil isnt good. Is this normal? Am I missing something? The engine was originally a running 360 out of a 76 F150. No mods have been made to the oil galleries so this must have been this way before.

Here are the pertinent details of the engine:
68 390 block, machined .030
Hydraulic lifters
Edlebrock Streetmaster 390 Intake
Needed gallery plugs installed - 4 in back of block, 1 inside distributor cavity
4 plug holes open in lifter gallery for oiling lifters
HV oil pump with hardened shaft
.090 Holley restrictor on rocker shafts
pump to filter hole opened to 7/16"
crank main oil feeds chamfered

I see low oil pressure as a result of this also. Spinning the drill at 700 rpms gets no oil out of the other gallery holes and none up the rockers even with rockers removed. If I finger plug the front oil gallery hole and spin the drill, oil flows through the other passages as expected. Seems like a baffle or maybe a restrictor is missing? I thought about modifying and extending the valley oil baffle to block the stream of oil, but dont know if that messes something else up. I have been searching every available forum for answers and cant find anyone that has questioned this. Any guidance? Much thanks.

 

Was thinking more about the problem....could it be the lifter gallery itself is partially clogged up? Although I can get oil to flow through the back lifter gallery holes when I plug the front hole with my finger, maybe the gallery run is partially shut off. Thoughts on that theory? Any help is appreciated by the experts.

 

Sounds like something in the rocker assembly is not right.

 

did you post this on VMF too ? same question on there .

 

Yes, that is my post there. They recommended I go to the FE forum so I landed here. A recommendation and consensus the VMF guys gave was to plug that first lifter gallery hole near the front of the engine (for hydraulic lifters) and leave the back ones open. Does this sound right to everyone? I hope so because that is a pretty straight forward fix. Thanks again for the help.

 

Here is a link to the thread on VMF. I added a picture to that thread of the lifter oil gallery hole that is shooting oil across my garage floor, if that helps. Thanks again for all the help!


390 too much oil in valve covers - problem? - Vintage Mustang Forums

 

The awesome guys at VMF educated me on the use of valley plugs for these FE engines. The instructions I have been reading in the books and online were very confusing as to when to plug these holes and when to leave them open. Those guys informed me that there are internal plugs that are used to plug the passages down to the rockers themselves that get plugged for solid cams, but the factory plugs visible in the lifter gallery "always" get plugged regardless of cam type. I was not aware of that.

So back to the machine shop to get an explanation why he plugged half of my holes and left the others open. Wont be a comfortable conversation for him. Closing this thread out, later guys. Thanks for the input.

 

Thanks for posting your findings, good luck.