I can't believe that two years have passed since I yanked the engine just after Christmas of twelve:


The grease and grime was everywhere:

As for some of the questions above. I am not sure what the flow rate is for the stock pump but I do know (first hand) that it moves a bunch. Last weekend I was priming the system with an electric-drill & empty dizzy body and neglected to cap the oil pressure gauge opening in the main gallery. The result was a half pint burst of oil squirting at least three feet . . .
California Bill talks about fitting the GMC oil pump to Chevies - but the hard-lines need to be re-plumbed so I did not go down that path. The pump that came out of the engine seemed in good working order - so just replaced the impeller guts using a rebuild kit from Tygart's Obsolete Chevy.

As for the cam gear - it is not original to the 216. These engines were shipped with a so called 'fiber' cam gear (epoxy resin and fibers). They are designed to be quiet. If starved of oil they can quickly breakdown - even with oil the teeth degrade:

which is what I found inside my engine. And this engine was rebuilt somewhere along the way (don't know if the gear was replaced at that time or not) I know it was rebuilt because I found fresh plug in the rear cam shaft opening - and the connecting rods were marked by Federal Mogul Babbit Bearings "RECOND BY FM BB INC".

The aluminum gear was created for the high performance 235 found in the '54 Corvette. Eventually the fiber gears were obsoleted. As for lifters - there were no hydraulic lifters until the Power Glide car's shipped in '50. Stick cars continued to get solid lifters.

As for the cam specs - I am running a regrind based on an ancient Isky specification (DP#2)
Inliners Post circa '04
Isky advertised it as a 250/280 affair.
Stock spec is 220/231.
I asked the guys at Delta to regrind a cam to the Isky DP#2 spec. The cam doctor report for the stick indicates:
248/264 @ .020
205/233 @ .050
Lift is .41/.40 with stock 1.5:1 rockers.

Happy Holidays to all. More posts to come.

regards,
stock49