It's a good thing you removed it. You were at least starving the rocker arms for oil, if not the connecting rod spray tubes. The oil distributor is there to assure that the lower end gets oiled adequately before the rockers get lubricated, requiring at least 15 PSI to the main bearings and spray nozzles before oil goes to the top side. The fact that a 216 pump could indicate as high a pressure as you were getting suggests the entire engine was getting oil-starved and most of the pump volume was trying to force itself through that 1/16" metering hole in the filter canister before getting to either the top or bottom of the engine. There are ways to make a 216 run a full flow filter but it takes a bigger pump and some internal modifications to the oil galleries inside the block.
Jerry

"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and eliminate all doubt!" - Abraham Lincoln
Cringe and wail in fear, Eloi- - - - -we Morlocks are on the hunt!
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