I just completed installation of new cylinder heads and a Milodon oil pan with Melling regular pressure / high volume oil pump on my 400 sbc. Also installed new hydrualic lifters since I was clever enough to dump the old ones out of the block while turning the thing over on an engine stand.

Since I had the motor on an engine stand for this work, I adjusted the valves and primed the oiling system while the thing was on the engine stand.

After the motor was back in the car and driven a little, I adjusted the valves again since one or more seemed a bit noisy. Went through all the valves and while spinning the motor over I noticed what seemed to be a much higher volume of oil coming from the #6 exhuast pushrod / rocker than from the rest.

Is this normal or do I have a problem (maybe a bad lifter)? Not sure if it's related, but I noticed that my oil pressure does not respond as quickly to changes in engine speed as it did with my old pump (Z-28 pump).

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

mcase there is rarely , if ever, an equal amount of oil coming out of each lifter. Unless there is some other symptom of failure I would not concern myself over this particular phenomenon.

With respect to the oil pump(s) you would be comparing apples and oranges. Can't do that. The operating perameters are different so now you have to learn a new set. Rather than concentrate solely on oil pressure take a global approach by listening and looking at everything until you are used to the "new" engine.

Thanks for the reply. I understand your comments on the difference in oil pumps. The Melling pump came with a high pressure (70 psi) or a "stock" spring, and 70 psi seemed higher than I wanted. Might have been a better move to take the spring out of the old pump and use it in the new pump (about 60 psi).

About your other point - the second valve adjustment seems to have taken care of the excess lifter noise. It's a Comp Extreme Energy cam (not too big) and I've seen other posts about these being noisy cams due to design. There don't seem to be any obvious signs of problems or impending disaster.

However, I'm still puzzled about the differnce in oil volume from the rockers / pushrods. I've looked around a bit and can't find much detail on how the oil flows through a little block chevy.

Seems like the lifters are fed off a common oil galley, then feed through the individual pushrod to the rocker assembly. Oil lubricates the parts and cools the springs (as I recall). As these are new parts, I don't want to lose my springs or worse by not identifying a problem now before I put many miles on the motor.

Could there be a problem with a new lifter that would allow a much greater volume of oil through it than the others? (Had an old one apart but don't know how to asnwer this question).

Be interested in any thoughts anyone out there has. Thanks in advance.