I decided to post here as I have plundered this section the most for information regarding my build. I accept all flogging if I am in the wrong spot, and for the past months of info poaching without contributing.

I am hoping you can find forgiveness in your heart because I am a little freaked out. I have swapped a 71 460 into a 76 f150 (originally had a 390). As my first major build (rebuilt c6 tranny, engine and np203 transfer case) I have been pretty careful. Everything went beautifully except...

It runs like ****, has no oil pressure, little vacuum and pretty bad valve knock. Oh, and I realized most of this after my cam break in. So, other than giggles, I was wondering if anyone might have a glimmer of hope to lend.

The tangible data I have gathered is as follows:

bored over .30
comp cams 34-234-4
springs to match (as per comp cams' direction)
460 performer intake
L&L swap headers
Weber 750 cfm 4 barrel (basically the same as edelbrock 1404, and no, I'm not saying they are the same, but since i had no idea who Weber was, I found this correlation helpful).
Nothing special about the pistons, push rods, lifters, dizzy, plugs, or wires other than they are new and, I trust, fit for my application.

Running Data:

First run (about 5 minutes 2000-2500 rpms) started with vacuum advance disconnected/plugged and 15 degrees advanced timing. Rough running, backfires and glowing hot exhaust ports on cylinders 3,4,6 and 8.

Fiddling around on the next two runs (roughly 10 min each 2000-2500 rpms) the best I have been able to make it run is 38 degrees advanced. It seems to have evened the temps out a little and idles well enough that I think the carb is tuned close. And by well enough I mean the idle is slightly less ****ty.

At 38 degrees advances and 2000 rpms cold I get:

10-12 psi oil pressure (mechanical measurement)
10 psi vacuum (measured at the brake booster)

At 38 degrees advances and 2000 rpms warm I get:

almost zero oil pressure
about the same vacuum

Thoughts???

p.s. thanks to all that have gotten me this far. I am a little tongue in cheek with some of this. I have really enjoyed this learning experience, and the amount you can learn from this forum is amazing. However, next time i'm going to school on a vehicle I don't depend on for work (thus the kinda freaked out)

 

Last couple tid bits: Discarded my Wells spark o'matic because my wiring started falling apart and as I fell further down that gopher hole I decided it was more simple to start over. I rewired the ignition feeds from the firewall and the relevant engine wiring (which I believe was 12 wires, so I'm not bragging here

I installed a Mallory Hyfire VI a, and I have confirmed spark at every cylinder.

Oh and no smog, no egr. Remnants of old smog tube is open to the air right now and I believe connects only back to the midship fuel tank

 

If you have next to no oil pressure why are you running it for a total of 25 minutes? At 2000 to 2500 rpm with a cold engine you should be getting 30-70 psi depending on the weight of the oil.

Also if she runs bad why are you attempting to break in the cam? You should at least achieve a good idle before attempting anything else.

 

Did you put the shaft back in when you installed the oil pump? Been there done that and paid the price pull the oil pan, pump, and chceck its there and if it is, seated properly and isnt stripped out.

 

I know you don't want to hear this, but from what you are telling us it sounds like you need to tear it back down and inspect the damage. It has run a long time with low to no oil pressure. It is now knocking? Not running on all cylinders? Maybe cam damage? 25 minutes is enough to flatten lobes on a new cam with improper lubrication.

You need to check all your bearing clearances even if the bearings look ok. You need to check the cam to make sure no lobes are damaged. You need to research where all of the oil gallery plugs go in the block and make sure none were left out. The machine shop should have removed all the gallery plugs when they cleaned the block prior to boring.

It is the builders' responsibility to clean all of the oil galleries AFTER getting the block back from the machine shop. They should have given you a bag of plugs even if they already installed the core ("freeze") plugs. You can also check that all he oil holes in the cam bearings are properly aligned with the passages in the block.

I hope all is well and it i you find a simple problem, but at this point everything needs to be checked again.

 

I have used that cam before and had issues with it not making it thru the cam breakin period, Comp cams replaced it and the lifters (I paid for another one and once they inspected the bad one they refunded me my monies) Comp cams provided a cam breakin lub and Lucas makes a zinc additive for break in as well and I have used both on the last two engine builds I have done those without any issues.

 

Thanks to all for replying. I have not yet pulled the dizzy to make sure the drive gear is in place. However, I became really familiar with the tricky part of getting the rotor where you want it, the dizzy gears meshed and getting that last half inch of drop onto the oil pump shaft. Point being that I would be very surprised if on that last go I managed to knock the thing into the pan. I will look though.

I did use the comp cams pre lube and lucas in the oil. I'm going to start by pulling the valve covers and seeing what is happening up top. Then dropping the pan and looking at the oil and the crank.

The machine shop gave me no information other than a piece of paper with a pre-ignition checklist printed off the internet. Which doesn't mean they did a bad job, just that I have no idea what they did or didn't do.

If I don't get any answers from the simple stuff, out with the cherry picker. it'll be a shame. First time in my life I've had zero leaks on one of my trucks

Btw, I can get it to idle. It just doesn't sound right and acceleration is choppy.

What about my vacuum reading at the booster? I reported psi but meant inches. Is 10 inches of vacuum sufficient at 2000 rpms? Could low vacuum (leak somewhere) cause low oil pressure? I know it could account for the rough running, but I don't see it affecting oil pressure.

 

This is an example of the posts I don't love on this site. What is the purpose of you taking your time to write this? The answer to your questions can mostly be found in my post.

This all may be childs play to you at this point, but dialing in a rebuilt carb and setting ignition timing, all while trying to keep an engine above 2000 rpms, is a pretty spooky and difficult thing for an amateur builder working alone. The oil pressure was within acceptable range when I started it, it wasn't until the end of the first 10 minutes I noticed it had plummeted. Hope and inexperience accounts for the other 10-15 minutes of running.

As to your rhetorical/patronizing question, I give you Tom Monroe:

"The first 30 minutes of running are the most critical...the rules are the engine should be running at no less than 1500 rpms...the engine should not be slow idled under any circumstances" (his use of bold, not mine)

Unless you call 2000-2500 rpms idle (sounds pretty good in that range actually), getting it to idle before break in was not an option

 

At no point did you state that you had good oil pressure upon first fire of the engine.

This is what you posted
"It runs like ****, has no oil pressure, little vacuum and pretty bad valve knock. Oh, and I realized most of this after my cam break in. So, other than giggles, I was wondering if anyone might have a glimmer of hope to lend."

Nothing in the two questions I asked you were rhetorical or patronizing. You are the person that asked for help. If we ask for addition information don't get in a tiff.

For your info idle is what you make of it. Idle speed is what you set it at regardless of what the manufacturer specifies. If your carburetor was correctly rebuilt all it should take to achieve a satisfactory idle is to turn the idle mixture in all the way, then back it out 1-1/2 turns. The rest is dependent on your idle speed screw.

If your engine as you stated "runs like S4!t" you need to shut it down and correct your problem before continuing with cam break in. No one will tell you to not correct an issue mid cam break in.

All in all it appears that you may have sheared the pin on the distributer gear and stripped the oil pump shaft.

Next time you fire up this engine it would be a good idea for you to plumb some temporary gauges under the hood. This way you can keep an eye on the essentials. Going 10 min without checking your gauges is unacceptable on a brand new engine.

 

I wasn't in a tiff. I am tired, worried and probably a little defensive. The problem with the typed word is tone is interpreted where there may be none. For example, to me, the first post (and this last one for that matter) read like someone who knows it all and is more interested in pointing out faults than working on solutions. I could be wrong though.

You didn't ask for more information other than the "why did you continue to run the engine?". And what would have been the acceptable answer to that? Ummm, because I'm a dumb *** and don't really know what I'm doing? I thought I made that part perfectly clear (this is what I meant by most of that information was in my original post). I have made plenty of mistakes I'm sure. Just trying to figure out how bad they are and how to fix them.

I do now have remote gauges. Thanks. I won't feel bad if you bow out of the thread. I think we got off on the wrong foot. However, if you wish to hang around, I'm sure I could benefit from your experience and wisdom. Seriously.

Anyway, back to important matters

 

My first suspicion would be a missing oil galley plug. That would account for the low oil pressure, this could start a chain reaction that could wipe out the camshaft. That would account for the low vacuum and poor idle.
Agree with those above, bite the bullet, tear it back down and check for damage.
The glowing exhaust could be caused by severely retarded timing. Check to make sure the harmonic balancer hasn't slipped so now the timing marks are off.
When asking for advice, listen to the more experienced people here. Co425 is one of them. This is your first rebuild and it has problems, this isn't too unusual, but being defensive won't solve your problems. Listening, being detailed in your explanation and information, and following advice will.

One other thing, check the clearance between the oil pump pick up and the bottom of the pan.

 

I didn't get too far today as I needed to prepare my little shop for the worst. I eventually did pull the dizzy. The drive stud for the oil pump looks to be intact and in the right place. The distributor drive gear shows no wear. All is covered with oil and it hasn't been run since last night.

I pulled the passenger valve cover off and it certainly looks like everything has been getting a pretty good splashing of oil. All the push rods can be turned by hand with the exception of the intake for cylinder #2 (I think this is normal depending on the position of the crank/camshaft?). However, all rocker arms with the exception of intakes #2 and #3 have a little play (you can jiggle them a little toward the front and back of the truck). Is this normal? Should I tighten them all now? I will review the instructions I was following, but I'm pretty sure I followed them well.

There is some metal dust in pools of oil at the low spots in the head. The oil pooled in the rocker arm cavities show no metal though. I think this metal may be an artifact of the machining and rinsed down the casting of the heads? It seems to me it would be as prevalent in the rocker arms since I kind of picture them acting as little gold pans as oil is bathed over them. I understand my picture and imagination may not be accurate here though.

I have some pictures of the valve train and oil I will try and upload, though I don't think I have that capability yet.

One thought I had, is it possible that during that first run I heated the oil to the extent that it lost its viscosity? I realize this could lead to just as many problems for the cam etc. as anything else. Just bouncing ideas around. Have to go to a meeting, but I will do some more research later. Thanks again.

 

@ Mike and co425

Heard. Consider me chastened and will attempt to be less defensive in the future.

I'm starting to think the oil galley plug may be the culprit. It is too late to call the machine shop and figure out their protocol, but it sounds like the industry standard is to leave them out. I remember going over that section of the book and looking over the engine, but I can't for the life of me remember actually putting one in. I don't have a photographic memory, but a pretty good one. This tells me that either they put them in, or they were missed by me.

 

Believe me as many engines I have built that first fire is a nerve racking experience. I understand the frustration with issues that are hard to figure out in this respect.

As far as this goes start with that distributer and oil pump shaft. For some reason your timing is off and your oil pump is not up to snuff. No matter how crappy the timing, vacuum or idle you should have good oil pressure by given rpm. "posted this during your responce"

A vacuum leak can cause you to run lean and hot depending on where the leak is. Above the butterflies or below. I would block off all of your vacuum ports for initial start except the vacuum line to your advance.

On a stock cammed engine in good shape you should have somewhere around 17-21 inches. With your cam you are going to see reduced vacuum due to the overlap. You will more then likely need a vacuum canister to keep the booster properly supplied.

Bad timing will also cause a vacuum issue as well. As long as you have obvious open ports your vacuum reading is on the lower end of the scale of issues to deal with.

As far as your initial timing goes. What is your initial timing set at? Depending on the timing set the advance in your cam and, early 0 degree ect. You should be set at 10, 6, or 4 degrees. If you have a straight up 0 degree timing set and 0 on the cam you should be around 6 degrees btdc.

 

Apology accepted.

If your oil galley plug is out. I fear you need to tear her down again as nitro_rat suggested, unfortunately.

A good thing to do building an engine is to take lots of pictures. I take pictures of during tear down of each step of the way, including all of the core plugs and oil plugs. This way if I have a question about a certain issue I can reference my pictures first.