Oil Galley plugs at Camshaft

Needswork said
Hi YR, You might try spinning the oil pump when you have the timing cover off. If there are no plugs behind the cam plate I bet you will see oil squirting out. I did this and that's what happened to me (flat block and plate). Is it a lot of oil? No. But it will probably make a mess with the cover off. Does it cause a big oil pressure loss? Not in my experience. I ran without plugs behind the cam plate and did not experience low oil pressure. But, during a cam change I spun up the oil pump with the cover off and noticed oil squirting out (40+ psi on the gauge). I put the plugs in before wrapping up my cam change. Just my experience.

I took my own advice on my suggestion to YR. I'm working on my own stroker 340 and was doing some test fitting of parts and such. I went ahead and bolted on my oil pump, pan, added some oil and spun the oil pump with a drill. This is with NO galley plugs, just the cam plate (4 bolts). With 5-30 oil and 50 psi on the mechanical gauge I hooked up, there was only a small amount of oil escaping behind the cam plate. It didn't make a big mess like I expected (or remembered from the past). Instead, it just dribbles down the front of the block. My guess is maybe 1 cup of oil a minute. Other setups might be different. A plate with only 3 bolts might "leak" more. Just my experience. I'm still going to install the plugs.