okay I have replaced all the seals in the motor, cleaned everything, replaced thermal bypass valve with adkins pellet and used completely different pressure regulators from another turbo II motor I had. also used TII oil pump. here is the deal, I still have low oil pressure. the pressure sending unit is off of another motor. the only part of the system that is the same before and after chassis swap/engine rebuild is the oil cooler bypass valve. can this effect pressure? the guage cluster is the most suspect part but I wanna rule everything else out before I just ignore the problem. at 3,000 RPM I am seeing like around 40 psi that doesn not move unless the car returns to idle, then it sees like 30 psi. I have watched the guage stay at 40 PSI while reving to 4,000rpm. I have had this problem before the motor was pulled and the guage has done some crazy stuff before also like spike all the way out and then go all the way to zero. sometimes it goes to zero at idle. car runs fine. I never had this problem in the other chassis with the same engine. car always keeped like 75 psi at highway cruise. Just the guage? also, do old oil pump chains with slack in them break at high RPM? is this why they always need replacement?

 

Go to autozone or equivalent. Buy yourself the cheapest MECHANICAL oil pressure gauge (sunpro or something) which will cost around $25-35. You'll also need an adaptor fitting kit (sunpro makes this kit and its usually with teh gauges, another $5, with several adaptors in it, including the 1/8-27 to 1/8-28 fitting our cars need). Remove your stock oil sending unit...insert the adaptor and the gauge with it's line...lay it on the windshield and fire it up. Odds are, you'll see 25+ at idle and 40+ everywhere else, which is perfectly normal. I have seen stock gauges be totally fucked up (my convertible is acting stupid right now in fact) and yet the engine make perfect pressure. IN fact, I have an AFTEMARKET electric gauge in my car right now, and IT is inaccurate, too. It shows 10psi at idle, yet the mechanical gauge shows 25-30.

Anytime you have consistently odd readings with no symptoms of a problem from the engine itself, always suspect the gauges themselves. No need to turn wrenches and troubleshoot a system that isn't even causing a problem.

 

Alright. I changed my oil last week. (Castrol 20W-50 with Atkins Rotary OEM Oil filter.) All was fine with the oil pressure guage, then today at 750 RPM idle it was about 50. When I was driving it was about 70ish. My AE usually runs about 10 lower at idle and when driving. Anything to worry about or is my oil guage just trying to scare me?

 

50 is unusually high at idle for a fully hot engine. It sounds like the gauge/sender is way off. Dittos to the second post. Twenty to thirty is closer to normal at idle with a fully warmed/HOT engine.

 

But why would they fail suddenly? I was driving to a mall and it was reading fun. Then I drove to play some tennis, still fine. Then when I was driving home from tennis it was different. Same thing today but sometimes it wasn't as high. WTF?

 

if it suddenly dropped 10-15ft lbs at idle the I would be looking at a stuck E shaft thermo valve.

 

It didn't drop, it rose 10 ft lbs or so.

 

Driving down I-65 to go to Franklin my oil guage was reading 60 at full throttle. I don't know what the hell it's doing but it's back to normal again..........
But for how long?