Hot Rods Will cranking a motor lube the cam?

I've got a hot small block mopar that is going into my 61 Falcon G***er, but it's been sitting for about 3 years. I would love to fire it off to get her up to temp and such but while i can cobble together a quick cooling system, there are no exhaust manifolds or headers- i've read that you can ****** up the valves running it right off the heads, to say nothing of the noise killing any chance of hearing any type of mechanical issue creeping up. So i'm thinking of chucking some oil in the pan and spinning it up to lube the bearings and seals- my quesition is:

Would the starter give it enough rpm to wet the valve stems and would any oil make it to the cam lobes? I spun it in spurts with the starter last week to get the converter bolted up and torqued down, Hope that didn't do any harm. -rick

 

should be ok if it was running before. pull the sparkplugs and crank it until oil pressure shows. (and you might pull valve covers and pour the oil over everything prior to cranking. )

 

pull the distributor and prime it using a drill.

 

Those ideas would help for the lubing the valves/rockers, but from what i understand, all the V8s still lube the cam lobes and lifter bottoms by splash from the crank/rods. I dont know if a starter will give enough rpm for that. I'm not really at a place where i can flip the mill over or pull the intake to pour oil on the camshaft directly. Do the drain back holes in the heads line up enough to lube the cam lobes? -rick.

 

I doubt you will get any splash from the starter turning it over. Much to slow. The cam grinders want you to spin it over 1500-2000 when breaking in a cam so I would think you need about that much rpm to get oil to the lobes.

 

Just wait until you can do it right.

 

Enough oil will leak out the lifter bores when using electric drill to spin the pump just sooner than cranking the engine with the starter but the lobes will get oil.....

 

From Crane:
After the correct break-in lubricant is applied to the cam and lifters, fill the crankcase with fresh non-synthetic oil. Prime the oil system with a priming tool and an electric drill so that all oil p***ages and the oil filter are full of oil. Pre-set the ignition timing and prime the fuel system. Fill the cooling system. Start the engine. The engine should start quickly and run between 1500 and 3000 rpm.
If the engine will not start, don't continue to crank for long periods, as that is very detrimental to the life of the cam. Check for the cause and correct. The engine should quickly start and be run between 1500 to 3000 rpm. Vary the rpm up and down in this rpm range during the first 15 to 20 minutes, (do not run the engine at a steady rpm). During this break-in time, verify that the pushrods are rotating, as this will show that the lifters are also rotating. If the lifters don't rotate, the cam lobe and lifter will fail. Sometimes you may need to help spin the pushrod to start the rotation process during this break-in procedure.

 

I probably should have mentioned that the mill has about 5 thousand miles on it after being broken in and tuned up tight on the engine dyno, so hopefully the cam will be fine with some starter shenanigans to wet the innards again.-rick

 

Bingo on that! If it's been sitting for years & you're going to fire it up soon do the drill motor thing & you might want to drop the pan & spray something like white lithium grease on it rather than leaving it bare, hmm didn't actually say if rebuilt or not, but it's definatly dry from sitting I'd guess.