Thanks for the kind words. I used to be the kid running the drill motor turning the oil pump mounted in the 5-gallon pail of oil while my father and his partner looked at the underside of a bunch of 283's with the oil pans removed that had come back to the shop after in-the-frame rebuilds, something that we did a lot of on flathead Fords and Stovebolt 6-cylinders in the mid-50's and before. We found out that was not a good idea on small block V-8's because by the time the engine was ready for rings and rod bearings, there was also enough cam and main bearing wear that the standard oil pump could not keep up with the demand for oil at a hot idle. The idiot light was on a 7-lb. switch, and it would flicker at a stoplight, particularly on a car with an automatic transmission. A pump with slightly larger gears, pumping just a bit more oil would have fixed the problem, but those were not available at the time.
Oil pressure is controlled by two things- - - -speed and volume of the pump, and the pressure relief valve. I could flow 100 gallons per minute of oil, at 30 psi, if I had a big enough relief valve to dump the excess oil back into the pan after the lifters, bearings, and all the other pressure-lubricated parts were supplied. Bearing clearance and wear determines how much volume of oil the engine needs for lubrication. If I'm supplying exactly the volume of oil necessary for lubrication, and no more, the oil pressure will be ZERO PSI. Every time one drop of oil enters a bearing, a drop leaks out. The fact an engine has any oil presure at all indicates it's getting more flow from the pump than it needs to lube the engine. Having 30 PSI or more is just overkill, to make sure nothing gets starved for oil at the end of the circuit, or when things heat up and the oil thins and clearances increase.
The 283's and their 4-inch bore big brothers, the 301's that we built in the early 1960's ran 8,000 RPM consistently, with no issues other than the occasional scattered engine from abuse on the dirt track. The smaller the connecting rod journal, the faster it can rev without damage. The lower peripheral velocity on the surface of the small journal develops less surface friction. The current NASCAR 350's use Honda-sized rod journals, smaller than a 283, and they wind them over 9,000 RPM!
Jerry
