I finally got around to installing my rebuilt head after my overheating adventure and I was greeted by much more valve noise than I remember as normal. I just changed the oil, the level is good, and I'm getting good pressure. I used assembly lube on the rotating parts and was cautious about keeping everything covered while the head and valve cover were off to keep out garbage. Opening the oil cap reveals that the visible cam has an oil coating, but doesn't result in an oil bath with the engine is running. Here's a recording I made after ~10 minutes of run time.
What's the verdict? Do I have an oil flow problem, plugged passages, demonic possession or just HLAs that are slow to pressurize? Thanks guys.

 

Hmmph.. I had a fair amount of valve noise when I did my 1.6 timing belt/etc, but nothing quite that bad, esp after 10 minutes.

 

I pulled my valve cover to look for signs of oil starvation. There are some small pools of oil, so it's apparently getting some, but the cams are quite dry. I disconnected the coils,disabled the injectors, and turned it over without the valve cover in place and didn't really see any oil flow. Should it the flow volume be enough to be obvious? When I was putting the gasket on it seemed like there was only one orientation that worked, but a search shows that the stock Miata gasket fits two ways, one of which blocks the oil feed. That being the case, is there any way to check that I have the gasket oriented correctly without pulling everything apart again? Hopefully I haven't already toasted the bearings. Thanks guys.

 

There are no bearings in the head if that's what you're referring to. The block mains should still get oil however.

 

True, no bearings. I should have said journals. Concern still exists though.

 

Not uncommon for Hyd buckets to be noisy for a bit after an install

A bit of varnish build up on the inside need to be worn thu untill they find there happy home n be quite

Some engines can take 30 miles or so of drive time to quite up

 

Holy crap! Good to see BogusSVO back on