Minor update: CHP wanted me to remove the valve covers and examine the rockers, pushrods, which I did. I removed 12 of the pushrods/rockers (the other 4 were compressing a spring and didn't want to damage anything, lose a finger, etc by letting them out; probably over cautious but whatever). I can't see any visible bending or damage. Rockers all move fine, don't make noise. Pushrods appear straight.. I rolled them on a flat surface and while I *may* have seen a tiny wobble as a few of them rolled, I couldn't see anything that was really definitive as far as the human eye goes. Is there a simple test that can reliably verify they're ok or not?
One thing I *did* notice - the driver's side cylinder bank was much 'drier' with regards to oiling. I was marking each rocker with a sharpie (to keep track of which was where, seemed like a good idea). I had no issues marking any of the driver's side rockers. However, on the passenger side, every single rocker had a coat of oil on it that prevented the sharpie from working. IT seems like a minor difference, but it was applicable to every single rocker. Additionally, once I noticed, that, I noticed there while there were little pools of oil in the various grooves of the cylinder head (like you'd expect), there weren't many (if any, now that i think about it), on the driver side. I did the driver side first so didn't actively look for it on that side, but I'm pretty confident there were no pools.
I have pictures of the pushrods and access to both them and the rockers if they're helpful, but there isn't much to see
Combined with the basically empty/ mostly dry oil filter (and the generally low oil pressure throughout service..)... could this be evidence of an issue with the oil pump/pickup?
I removed the distributor. Gear looks like it did when we installed it, and no carnage evident in the distributor hole on the block. Also verified it is indeed the summit gear (see yellow dot) for roller cams, so we got that right. See pictures.
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