She's back together and screaming like a banshee again, but with a slightly more stable idle. Now I can get back to pulling excess fuel and adding timing to the light load parts of the map. I put about 50 miles on it yesterday, now I want to change the
oil and filter again to be sure I have all of the old cam gear out.
The pump has a pressure relief bypass valve to keep the resistance in check. The added swept area / volume does add a little more load on the gear, but only 30% or so. The gear shouldn't be so marginally designed to fail over an additional 30% load. Going from cast iron to steel should easily regain that margin. And yes, I have an ARP drive shaft.
The HV pump is cheap insurance. It ensures you have plenty of pressure on a well aged motor that's pushed hard, even when the
oil gets a little too hot. All you sacrifice is a little fuel economy.
Wbulk, you're post scared me for a second when you said there should be a minimum .005" clearance between the distributor gear and the block. Just to make sure I'm right, the gear DOES ride on the block, but you want to see end play in the distributor of .005" when installed. That is what I have. Saying it needs .005" minimum clearance sound like it shouldn't ever touch the block.
With the dizzy out, I have about .025" of shaft endplay, but when installed and the gear is seated in the block, instead of the top of the shaft, under the advance mechanism hitting the upper bearing, I have .005".