I had a 66 289 hipo that I sold to the guy that owns GT 40 #1069 because it had the corrct date codes for his car. He only wanted the block,heads and timing cover as he was putting all new internals in it. I say if thats good enough for his GT 40 without affecting value it shold be fine for your car.

Ya know its funny, the only reason I didnt prime it prior to putting it in the car is for the now dumb reason was I have to install the Cobras oil temp gauge into the 8 qt. pan which meant I would have to drain the oil back out so it would not come flooding out when I removed the plug for the gauge to install the sending unit which is a mechanical gauge and the sender is attached and cant be removed from the gauge. Really seems like a dumb idea now.
 Im going to pull the intake and head tonight and see whats going on in there 

If you put your shop vac on the breather in the valve cover and turn it on, when you pull the oil plug no oil will come out. I have done this lots of times to fix a.leaky oil plug.

I hang'em.