I've been trying to fire up the 390 in the Stevens and have been fighting little stuff. Here's where I am now.
On Saturday, I finshed assembling everything and was prepping the engine to fire it and break it in. Before cranking it, I spun the oil pump and no pressure registered on the gauge. I removed the filter, and spun it and tons of oil came out. I removed the filter adapter and checked the gallery to the top end and there was no restriction.
Today, I pulled the rocker shafts and spun the pump. A decent flow of oil came out the restrictors in the heads, but no pressure to speak of. Bolted down the rockers and figured I'd remove the electric gauge sender and replace it with a mechanical gauge. Only thing around was a fuel pressure gauge, but it goes to 15 psi, so on it went. I spun the pump and got 14.5 psi at the filter. Now, I have no way of knowing how fast the drill motor I'm using to spin the pump is, but I would guess around 4-500 rpm.
This is a fresh motor, never fired. I'm walking away from this for the night, but I'm wondering. How much pressure should I see spinning the pump with a drill motor? I've done this on the 460's and seen more pressure, but am I just being paranoid?