9-6 M-F  9-1 sat  623-877-8553   TIMM     TIMINATOR

You still haven't called, so I bought a set of Hardin Marine logs and snails locally for $50.00.  I am selling my thru transom stainless headers with injection spyders, Bassett "T", and stainless hardlines to fit a 460 for $300.00. Changing boats. Bought Bassetts for the other one. These headers have been to the lake about 5 times and are in excellent shape.  Timm  623-877-8553  TIMINATOR

IMHO an 8 quart pan is too small for a healthy Olds, they have serious oiling and drain back issues. If the engine needs to come out, and even if it doesn't, find a print or online copy of the HotBoat Olds engine build up from about 2005. Lots of good info about Olds engines and their inherent issues. The only dated info is regarding intake manifolds. All is true as written except the Crosswind dual plane is now the best inexpensive intake manifold for 5500/5700 RPM or less. We have made around 680 HP with that DUAL PLANE intake, (88 MPH in a Biesmeyer 18 1/2' jet.) The Performer RPM dual plane is just slightly better at the higher end of the range, mebbie 8-10 HP, but since a jet requires about 20 HP/MPH gain most don't think that for 100 bucks more is worth it for 1/2 MPH.
For lower HP engines, use the ARP conversion rocker studs and SB Ford stainless steel roller rocker arms, big cams and roller cams we drill and rethread the heads for 7/16" rocker studs.   TIMINATOR

Clevite bearings = Clevite Bearing Guard. JMHO   TIMINATOR

I hope I answered all of your questions, except I forgot to mention your priming method is wrong. If you prime until oil runs from the rockers, you have washed all of the prelube from the bearings!!!
When pre lubing we use Clevite Bearing guard on everything, rocker arms pushrod ends too and timing chain (put that on with a brush and get every link and pivot lubed. When priming any V-8 or V-6 chevy you need to use a dummy distributor housing to seal the passenger oil galley or else you wont get any oil to that side of the lifter/cam area. But most importantly, over priming does nothing but wash all of the pre-lube from the bearings into the oil pan!!! Yes, I'm yelling again.
The proper way: If a flat tappet cam is used, mix the ZDDP additive(cam break-in additive) in a clean container thoroughly with all of the oil before putting it into the engine, otherwise the engine will start and run before the additive is mixed and thrown on the cam where it is needed. Non-detergent oil is best for cam break-in because the detergent "cleans" the ZDDP deposit off form the cam/ lifters reducing its effectiveness. Fill the crankcase, then prime the shaft with a small drill or speedwrench, we don't recommend using a big drill because it is more difficult for a newbie to feel what happens next. Start the drill, it will freewheel until the pump picks up prime (you can feel and hear when that happens), then it pulls down the drill again once the oil filter fills, then the galleys fill and the drill pulls down again. STOP HERE!!!  (yelling again). You only need the pump primed, the filter full, and the air out of the main galleys. Any more "priming" just washes the $65.00/ gallon pre-lube down into the pan. You already pre-lubed the rockers, pushrods and everything else while assembling the engine, it needs no more until oil pressure is attained. Even the Clevite rep has rethought his position on engine priming after our discussion. (See Engine Builder Magazine last year.) 
Just so you know, I am very introspective in our engine building, so much so that about 30 years ago we assembled an engine, pre-lubed it the recommended way of the day, then took the pan off to see if the pre-lube was still on the bearings, it wasn't, we did it again and again until we came up with how we continue do it now/still. Remember, the drill pulls down when pump is primed, then again when the filter is full, and then again when the galleys are full, stop there. For non-detergent oil, buy the cheap stuff, you will change it after cam break-in anyway. After the break-in we prefer Shell Rotella "T" diesel oil, it has a great additive package, near what racing oil has, and much cheaper. Its what we use in our race and go fast lake  engines.  TIMINATOR

GM Dealer, parts guy that sells Pioneer, Elgin, or Dorman products, the core supplier or most machine shops. We save them when scrapping a bad block.  TIMINATOR

Your loop looks to be -6, if so, its too small. -8 would be the BARE MINIMUM IMHO. Stuck pistons on pins is detonation, or lack of oil. The pins get lubed from throw off oil from the crank bearings, not enough at the crank, not enough at the pins. The shop that told you to just plug the holes is wrong. The bypass to the side of the filter boss is to bypass oil if the filter gets plugged, the one I told you to remove is under the oil filter hollow threaded tube, it is there if the cooler gets plugged. You remove it if you don't have an external cooler. In a car or low rpm stock type boat, if the clearances are loose because it was run in a car first for say 50k - 85,000 miles or more and it has a stock car (smaller than a boat) cam, it may work. But the oil pressure will be low at rpm. Sometimes you get lucky sometimes not. Usually high mileage gen V or VI transplanted car motors with the cooler lines plugged work until you add a cam, or carb/ intake manifold. We see those every season. Usually early in the season because the last owner blew the engine, installed a truck motor over the winter, and sold the boat early in the new season.  TIMINATOR

If you use a hydraulic roller in a boat, rev kits are a good idea, they allow a lower spring pressure at the valve and make up the difference by pushing on the lifter body itself. The lesser spring pressure against the plunger reduces the amount of lifter bleed down and power loss, but the loss is still there. We prefer to only run solid rollers in boats because of the oil aeration allows the lifter to partially collapse at higher RPM or at any longer distance running, dropping the available HP. The solid roller setup is usually cheaper in the long run, than the hydraulic roller, especially if the rev kit cost and extra installation labor is figured in.
In a 21 Daytona with a 572 Chevy (268@.050/ .690 lift) in back to back testing the solid roller was 9 MPH faster. In a 25 Daytona blower motor 565" deal (264@.050/.668 lift) there was 11 MPH difference. These were both pretty hefty hyd rollers, and with a smaller hyd roller there would be less difference, but why use a smaller roller if your spending the money anyway?
    If you read and believe "magazine Horsepower" (you shouldn't), keep in mind that they are reading dyno Horsepower. Dyno HP is usually "corrected" to sea level air pressure (29.92"hg) and 68 degrees air temp. These conditions are rarely ever encountered at the lake, especially in summer. Dynos don't move, they sit there, they are not "going bow high" on the launch, trimmed out (also bow high) and throwing all of the oil up against the bottom of the crank and whipping it into a 'milkshake", nor are they going over waves and boat wakes, also throwing the oil against the crank. Oil against the crank slows the crank, rods and pistons sapping HP, aerating and heating the oil also. Hot oil is thinner and bleeds past the lifters plunger quicker, aerated oil is thinner and does the same thing. Any time the plunger bleeds down, it reduces the lift and duration of the cam.
Don't think aeration affects your hydraulic cam?  Buy a milkshake at your favorite "burger barn." See how full it is, don't drink any and let it sit for a half hour. See how full its not, the difference was air. Keep in mind that the "shake maker" probably only turns 1500 rpm and is 1 1/2" diameter, your crank goes 5000 rpm + and is 6" diameter. On the dyno we could make more HP by running a 10 quart pan with 6 or 7 quarts in it, all dyno operators know that, even with a windage tray.
Can't afford a roller cam? Use a solid cam and high lift rocker arms, that will help. No more lifter bleed down.
Olds motors have one of the worst  oiling systems known to modern engines, if you run a hydraulic cam, there is about 20+ HP to be gained by doing all of the correct oiling mods during rebuild, more if  you run a big cam, or just run a solid. 
Sorry about "jacking" the thread, but its good info....     TIMINATOR

More exhaust valves are failed from incorrectly set up and regulated O.T. headers than anything else! The higher the HP and RPM the more you need better valves. We use Ferrea Super Duty valves in the good stuff with O.T. headers, you can drop back to the Special Alloy for Lightning dry type exhaust. Less HP, like hydraulic cams, we use a minimum of their 6000 series. "Get away with" and exhaust valves should be a mutually exclusive deal.  You can stuff a cam in anything, but how long will it live?   TIMINATOR

GEN V and VI come with "Over-hyped-you-f***ed-me" Hypereuctetic) pistons. They are fine with a stock or low performance engine only, you can get away with them at a slightly elevated HP level if the cooling, clearances, timing and jetting are near perfect. More power, or any one or several of the issues mentioned and you break skirts first, then above that, the piston is gravel in the pan, and the pin and top of the rod make a big hole in the cylinder wall. Go forged if you want to make power, and find a machine shop that KNOWS BOAT MOTORS!!!(OK, this time I'm yelling). The number one problem we see at our shop is freshly built jet boat engines with cracked or shattered pistons, and usually after only a few outings, if cammed, manifolded and big headed. We have two in here now... 
Lets do a comparison of cast, hypers, and forged pistons on a scale of one to ten:
                     COST     and       STRENGTH

CAST                1                            1

Hypereuctetic    7                            2 or 3

FORGED           10                           10

Why pay the big bucks for something (hypers) that is only marginally stronger than cast? For a stock or near stock engine use cast, anything else, use forged. There was a very good HOTBOAT article about this subject, find it, read it, and post it. I can't, (legalities, I wrote it).
 
Hypers came out when the Federales mandated 50,000 mile mandantory smog compliance to the vehicles original owner. The factories needed a harder piston that wouldn't wear as much in the ring grooves or skirts, and could run at less clearance, all to help the smog deal. A large cast piston company knew that adding more Silica (sand) to the aluminum piston would make it harder, and they spent big bucks to conceive a way to take a normal cast (Hypo-euctetic) piston and add more sand than would normally stay in solution when cast. That's considered a Hyper-euctetic solution.
 Take a glass of iced tea (no sugar) and stir in sugar slowly until no more will dissolve into the tea, that's a Hypo-euctetic solution. If you add more sugar than it can hold at that temperature, the rest just goes to the bottom, and its still a Hypo-euctetic solution. If the temperature is raised in a very controlled manner and put in a preheated mold, JUST RIGHT, then the extra sand will stay in suspension and cast well. The extra sand makes the aluminum harder, that's what was wanted, but it also makes it more brittle, NOT what we want in a performance piston.
When GM first started putting the Hypers in all of their engines around the late 1990s (my brain is foggy about the date , not the facts) we R&R'ed at least 4 or 5 sets of them a WEEK for a local dealer, some with only "Black Death" (localized overheating and micro welding) on the skirts to siezed or exploded pistons and blocks that needed honing or replacing. We did those for about 2-4 years before they were all fixed or blocks replaced and honed as required. The rest of them were sold to old folks and peeps that babied their stuff until the wall clearances opened up. Many second owners got those babied cars/trucks and killed the pistons in the first weeks of ownership, and we did a lot of stockish motors. We always add at least .001 piston/ wall clearance minimum, and to this day do not install hypers unless its a stock or mild deal and we still add .001-.002 extra clearance depending upon the circumstances. We WILL NOT build a jet boat motor with Hypers at all for any reason. We are in Phoenix,AZ. and it gets to 110-115 here in the summer, we also do lots of motors for the Colorado River folks from Yuma to Laughlin where Summer temps will go to 120+.
Back to that harder piston deal, glass is made from Silica sand and is harder than a piston, but you wouldn't make a piston from it!  TIMINATOR

GT, we all know the factors that affect pump RPM at any HP level, and know that any boat speed probably can be attained by a wide range of RPMs. Our PREFERENCE (not shouting, just emphasis) is to build torque motors and keep the pump RPM down. Since we do all of our engine and pump machining and assembly in house, it is easier for us to match the engine to the pump and vice versa, than most shops. I.E. Motor guy lies about the HP and pump guy has to cut or change the impeller or loosen the pump to get the engine in its power band.
One of my best friends is a retired pump/ flow engineer and we spend lots of time and research on this subject. As a matter of fact he is the Comp jet guy that runs the small block, I'm sure you know who he is. His engine would be more reliable, except his philosophy is to use the lightest, smallest, cheapest, (yes cheapest) part that will JUST do the job, like Pro-Comp rods, no chit!. The last race in point, one of his injectors failed (totally) early in the second heat, and he finished the last heats all on 7 cylinders. Too cheap to carry a spare, really. I believe he ran second and third in those later races. Usually he just splits the block or cylinders. Again the "anybody can build it strong enough, it takes an Engineer to make it JUST strong enough" philosophy.
Back to us. He keeps harping on the fact that pump efficiency relates to output pressure VS input pressure, and even before his input we made our pumps "tighter"(more efficient) than most, and that complements my preference for torque engines. Given the choice, I will always make my power at a lower RPM than most. We prefer the results: less wear, less noise, less fuel consumption at cruise, and less expensive components, because its not the HP that hurts parts, its the RPMs. All of our 70 and 80+ MPH boats run single carb, dual plane intake manifolds at under or around 5000 RPM. Its how we roll, been doing it for 40 years and have it down pretty well. We use single plane intakes to over 100 MPH, and haven't put a tunnel ram on anything in about 10-12 years, except for two guys that had them and liked the "look". They pay for that in fuel and know it. As an example I ran a 21 Daytona for 4 years with thru transom exhaust, swim platforms, pump in STOCK location, American Turbine aluminum "A" impeller (untouched, out of the box), single plane Merlin intake, single stock 1050, AFR 320 heads, Comp roller cam, 10.6 compression, REGULAR pump gas and no additives. 102 MPH RADAR and GPS at 5700 RPM.  Dave (Aggressor) sent me a high helix "A" stainless impeller for evaluation when he first started making them and with no changes it dropped the RPM to 5500 and it only ran 96/97 MPH. Since it was cammed for 6200 RPM, I did what anybody would do, I stuck a bottle on it and it ran 6100 RPM in the 100teens. Still on regular. A ton of folks in Phoenix rode in it, it was only a lake boat, with a bimini top. I used to ride around with the top up and smoke a lot of boats that way. Me, a smartass, but prepared and anal(short for analyze)   TIMINATOR 

We don't set up our pumps that loose.  TIMINATOR

fuel level or fuel pressure too high, lousy ignition, set idle mixture to about 3/4 turn, power valve too high for the cam, take two aspirins and call me in the morning  TIMINATOR