frsh2fourty

I recently had my sr20 rebuilt and got it installed. Oil was filled and primed and built about 25psi cranking with fuel pump turned off and CAS/coil pack harness disconnected. Got it fired up and let it run for about a minute and made 70psi oil pressure before hearing a ton of valvetrain noise so I killed it and pulled the valve cover to find that the intake cam wasn't getting any oil from the oil tube. Exhaust side is getting plenty. Luckily it doesn't look like it grooved the cam lobes as it was burning through the assembly grease before I actually shut it off.

I did pull the oil tube and blew some air through, thinking maybe it got gummed up with assembly grease but it flows air just fine. I spun the motor by hand with the bolt at the oil feed for that tube removed and got no oil, but was getting some dripping from the exhaust side tube.

One thing I did find and fix was all 4 HLAs on the intake side were bad. They were all loose so I pulled the cam, bled them and reinstalled but by the time I got everything all bolted back up I checked and they were loose again so I replaced them with some spares I had and those seem to be holding pressure.

The rebuild was basically with all new parts and bolts. I think the only things I reused was the piston oil squirters, cam oil tubes, HLAs, and oil pan baffles. Everything else including the pump, all timing chain and related components is all brand new OEM stuff.

Anyone have any ideas what might be causing this or what I can do to try to remedy it? I'm talking to the engine builder about it but just trying to get some ideas that might solve this before I have to pull the engine back out.