new race car, no oil pressure

71gtdart said
after stewing on it for a bit, with a clear head, I have come up with what I believe to be the cause of this whole mess. you guys correct me if I'm wrong. oil leaves the pump and goes straight to the oil filter. when it leaves the oil filter, it goes straight up, and runs to the main oil galley, the port for the oil pressure fitting, and to the rear main and cam journal bearings. is that correct?

if so, my thought is that he has drove the rear tube just far enough into the block, to cover the last 4 lifter holes, and has the main oil feed coming up from the oil filter, covered with the copper tube. that kit has 2 copper tubes in it. one drives in from the front, and covers the first 4 lifter oil holes. then, the other come in from the back, and covers the remaining 4 lifter oil holes. if he only drove the tubes in far enough to cover the oil holes, there would be "empty space" between the 4th and 5th lifter bores. in other words, the tubes would not be butted up end to end. that space would be a couple inches long. meaning there would be more room to drive that rear tube, and doing so would uncover the oil feed hole coiming up from the oil filter. any thoughts on that theory?

I just looked at the oil schematic in a 70 service manual and after the oil leaves the filter it branches off in 2 directions. 1 way is to the pass side lifter oil galley. The other direction is to feed all the other parts you mentioned. From what it looks like to me on the schematic I can't see how driving the tube in too far will do that. I scanned and posted a picture of the oiling schematic. The picture came out kinda small so it's not easy to see but the galley leading away from the filter goes over, tee's off to the pass side lifter galley and over to the other items

Something that Dardevil mentioned is the fact that if you use ARP main studs the oil pump will no longer bolt on properly. You have to either use a bolt on the one side where the pump is or machine down the man cap .070-.100", cut the stud down a bit and use a thinner nut than they send, and possibly even grind down the pump body for more clearance. It's real tight in there already and the ARP bolt and nut add a bunch to the height.

Another possibility is you got a defective oil filter. You said it's full but is it letting oil flow? Just another thought that'd be an easy thing to test.