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you can put 3 or 4 quarts in using the bottle in the galley plug trick. When you get it buttoned up turn it over by hand 8 - 10 times and you should see oil seeping out of the lifters. When you see that you have pressure.
Also you can make a primer with some 4 inc pvc, a couple feet of transmission hose and some pressure fittings. Hook one into to your air compressor, the other to the oil galley plug and ease the pressure into the pvc up to 30 ish lbs. Might cost $30 bucks total.
Well dang. Now I’m getting mixed answers. To prime or not to prime. Ugh. I already bolted manifold on lol. I guess I’ll have to try and get that galley plug out. Idk where I put my Allen sockets at. Also it seems like the manifold won’t hold torque? I torque bolts then if I come back a little later they give me a few turns. Is this just me crushing the rubber gasket? Should I let it be?
Well dang. Now I’m getting mixed answers. To prime or not to prime. Ugh. I already bolted manifold on lol. I guess I’ll have to try and get that galley plug out. Idk where I put my Allen sockets at. Also it seems like the manifold won’t hold torque? I torque bolts then if I come back a little later they give me a few turns. Is this just me crushing the rubber gasket? Should I let it be?
Were you liberal with the assembly lube on the mains and rods? If so, fire it up and roll out.
The manifold bolts should torque down against the metal spacers around the bolt, and compress the rubber round things. Then the rubber just sorta holds the manifold suspended with it pressing down on the rubber of the gasket. The bolts don't clamp it down the way older motors did. Valve covers are the same way. IME the torque "spec" isn't very useful; rather, torque em until you feel the bolt tighten against metal and the torque suddenly rise, as opposed to some absolute value.
Have some confidence in your own work. If you built it right, then priming isn't a big deal one way or the other.
Were you liberal with the assembly lube on the mains and rods? If so, fire it up and roll out.
It wasn’t even that. The motor was torn apart for a week due to a demolished lifter. Wheel was broken in half and it wouldn’t slide out of lifter bore. Should’ve seen me sitting inside of engine bay with a parts grabber magnet pulling lifter out of cam hole. Car got new everything internal from the block up basically new cam new lifters new trays aftermarket heads and new rockers with Trunion upgrade. Fresh ls6 pump and new time chain. Have 42 pounders to put in but on current tune they would flood it out. So they’ll have to wait
It's always preferred to prime, but that doesn't mean it's necessary so don't get too caught up in it. Fire it, if it doesn't have oil pressure in a few seconds kill it. Try it again in a couple of minutes, if it still doesn't build then worry about finding a way to prime it. 99% chance or higher that if you just fire it it'll have pressure in a couple of seconds and be just fine.
In other words, if it were me, I would quit worrying about it and fire it.
I've done many oil pumps in my career, and I've never primed one of them. I do make sure they build pressure right off though and make sure that I've doused everything with oil while the motor was apart and/or have assembly lube on things. You're not working with a brand new motor here so there's a lot of things that still have a film of oil on them from the last time it ran.
Yea I was planning on starting it today. Poured 5 quarts over springs on both heads. But got caught up with company. Will button it up and fire it once I double check my pushrod length tomorrow. Will be sure to make a video for everyone who helped me to hear what this cam sounds like through longtubes and a borla
I'd change it very soon after running it to get any remaining metal out.
I plan to. The oil I drained before starting I ran my welding magnet through and picked up a little bit of material but not very much. I plan on doing another oil change in a day or two after I run some miles on it. There’s a guy my friend knows has some pretty quick ls cars and says he tunes. Might get a street tune on it so I can run my 42 pounders. Also the car is running. I was just going to fire it. But it wouldn’t start until it cranked for a bit anyway. Showed 40 psi cranking. Hot idle is around 35-40 and cruising 1400-2000 showing 45-50s. New lifter took care of the tick/tapping but man this cam sure is loud through the longtubes and ORY. The valvetrain noise is louder through my longtubes than it was. My iac is around 105 if I remember so I might try and fiddle with that a bit.
Car is street tuned for the most part. Ran okay with the 28 pound injectors. Swapped to the 42s from FIC and put in the flow data I could find online and I’m getting a stumble from below 1500 rpms. Also is there a way to increase my idle speed just when ac is on? The cam doesn’t pull enough vacuum to engage the clutch. But if you give just a little bit of gas the ac will work. Goin to figure out how to upload a video for you all. Cam sounds real pissed off at about 950 rpm. Pulls very hard at 3000rpm and up. Guy that tuned the car was trying to talk me into spraying it lol.
Guy was pretty cool. Had a nasty turbo ss. Sprayed and swapped with a th400. I can’t fogure out as to why it’s not running right at 1500 and below. It’s in any gear. Anything over about 35% throttle and it runs rough. When I get off I think I’m gonna change my wires out. The plugs are brand new. May be fouled a bit but the thing runs very strong under WOT and every other condition so I don’t think it’s anything like that. He wasn’t sure either. He said sensor wise everything looks good. He’s emailing FIC for fuel injector data and going to get my speedo corrected. We forgot to change that.
Guy was pretty cool. Had a nasty turbo ss. Sprayed and swapped with a th400. I can’t fogure out as to why it’s not running right at 1500 and below. It’s in any gear. Anything over about 35% throttle and it runs rough. When I get off I think I’m gonna change my wires out. The plugs are brand new. May be fouled a bit but the thing runs very strong under WOT and every other condition so I don’t think it’s anything like that. He wasn’t sure either. He said sensor wise everything looks good. He’s emailing FIC for fuel injector data and going to get my speedo corrected. We forgot to change that.
What you're describing sounds like ignition breakdown. If all the plugs are new try wires, but also check very carefully that you didn't crack a plug while installing them
Exactly. I’m not saying I’ve seen it all but most times I’ve ever seen a low rpm high load incident it’s almost always ignition. New msd super conductors will be in tomorrow. However the car did run fine with the 28 pound injectors. When I swapped the FIC 42 pounders is when it started happening. Although I did see the plug boot arcing onto header bolt in the dark afterwards. Kind of taped it up real good with electrical tape and put some electric grease in it. Didn’t see it arcing anymore but stumble was still there. Makes it a pain sometimes to take off in traffic with the 6 speed. Going to pull all plugs and look them over as well when I get the wires.
Exactly. I’m not saying I’ve seen it all but most times I’ve ever seen a low rpm high load incident it’s almost always ignition. New msd super conductors will be in tomorrow. However the car did run fine with the 28 pound injectors. When I swapped the FIC 42 pounders is when it started happening. Although I did see the plug boot arcing onto header bolt in the dark afterwards. Kind of taped it up real good with electrical tape and put some electric grease in it. Didn’t see it arcing anymore but stumble was still there. Makes it a pain sometimes to take off in traffic with the 6 speed. Going to pull all plugs and look them over as well when I get the wires.
I'm a tech by trade for the last 20 years and it pretty much never fails, high load at low rpm breakup ends up being ignition component failure... Let us know
No go on that. However I disconnected the battery and now car idles at 3000 or more. Like a massive vacuum leak but I can’t figure out where. I replaced the iac valve. This is very frustrating. I have the pcv hoses off the car and can’t find any leak
One of the new intake gaskets had a small tear and my pcv valve was stuck. Dropped car back off at tuner for a day or so. Picking it up here in an hour or two. Not sure how the gasket got torn I was very careful in placing the intake down in place rather than sliding it across the valley cover. But all should be good now
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If you built it right, then priming isn't a big deal one way or the other. 
