Yeah, I suppose they aren't like roller lifters, where orientation makes a BIG difference....

 

Here you can see the side oil hole is in a recess channel (left), so the oil would flow to it no matter the orientation. It wouldn't hurt to orient them so the holes align (if they can even align) but not an issue if you don't.




Old pic of mine. The hole is barely visible at bottom of cylinder. New Felpro valve stem on right. Everything is stained a dirty brown because the previous owner had really bad oil change habits. You'll find people who run these engines with no oil, overheat them or buy them already trashed and complain that they are POS. The fact that this engine is sitting at 340K and still running nice is a testament to their durability, in my eyes. I do provide decent care in the form of fully synthetic oil which is never allowed to drop low. Oil changes are every 7.5K and by then the oil is barely getting dark.

One could make the argument that I could have bought an engine already trashed too but I had the seller gas the crap out of it (poor thing didn't know better) while I stood back and watched the tailpipe. He even hit the rev limiter a few times. Didn't smoke and sounded healthy so I beat him down on price and got it super cheap. That and he had run the oil for like 20-30K without an oil change or ever checking it and there was still oil on the stick...I found that impressive. My first oil change, the oil rolled out like cold honey or molasses. Boy did I digress.

 

cheers for that! It makes sense with the sleeve in the middle