How fast does oil come out of pushrods at startup

[SuperTTA]

Gang,
Has any of you had you valve cover off and started the car? If so, how long after running did oil come out of your rocker arms.
I am used to small block chevy's where with 10 seconds oil is coming out and after a minute you have a mess.

My car seems to take a few minutes for the oil to come out and it just drools...doesn't shoot out like a chevy. My pushrods are spinning just fine on startup and I am not getting any clacking noise. Oil pressure is about 50 psi on startup...20 psi hot idle, 40-50 psi hot cruise. I am running 15w/50 mobil 1. 68K miles on engine/car.

Head is clean, valve cover clean, rocker arms look fine, but I did not take one off to check if there was an oil groove where the pushrod contacts the rocker.
Let me know,
James

 

[SuperTTA]

Thanks George.
Craziest thing I've ever seen. I wonder how the rocker arms and lifter last as long as they do with so slow oil feeding up there.
Later,
James

 

[automorph]

I have heard our motors are not built for 15-50 clearances, therefore should use 10-40 or recommended oil. Any truth to this?

Thanks
Andy

 

[SuperTTA]

I do not know, but I am going back to 10w/30 oil on the next oil change. I had another TTA, that had 125K miles on it when I sold it that was ran using Mobil 1 15w/50 its whole life and the motor was stock and it had the original turbo.
That is why I started running it in the TTA I have now.
Until, I saw how little oil came out of the rockers. Might even run 5W/30
Later,
James

 

[John Pearcy]

Unfortunatley, this is all too common and normal for the most part. If you remove the passenger side cover, you'll see the oil flows much better than the drivers side. The path the oil takes to the drivers side lifters is a challenge to say the least and benifits from some help.

The fix that seems to equalize the two sides is to install the higher flow oil pump gears, either use the HP timing cover or a booster pump kit. Then open the oil supply port in the cover to 1/2" and radius the inside corner. This greatly enhances both flow and pressure into the block.