Sleeperx7

Anyone know what may have happened:
I'm driving some back roads pretty hard and when I'm done I notice the oil pressure gauge is pointed almost perfectly straight up.. .in the middle of the little icon. It stayed there for a sustained period of time, around 10 minutes. I'm wondering if it got stuck up there, but it was wavering a bit at different rpms like it would normally. Although still from 95-100 degrees past horizontal. So I get back to my appt, restart it, and it shows 30lbs and dropping fast. When I reved it, pressure did not build past 30 pounds even at 4k rpms. Currently I'm letting it totally cool down and I'll start it again. Has this happened to anyone... did I just blow my oil pump?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

On a side note... if nothing ends up being wrong, its pretty cool that a stock oil pump can throw out what I would guess to be around 130 pounds of pressure.

Icemark

sounds like you have something in your oil system... something clogging a line.

Flush your oil system out, and get a new oil filter (chances are that the filter is breaking up if you have no other symptoms and you do not have a Mazda OEM oil filter).

NZConvertible

Sounds more like a dodgy gauge, but it could be a failed pressure regulator. Get a mechanical gauge to check the readings.

There's nothing special about the pump's output. It has to be able to provide ~15psi at idle, so its output at high revs is obviously going to be much higher. That's why an oil pressure regulator is required.

What is interesting is that there are actually two OPR's, one before the oil cooler (~11bar) and one after the oil cooler (~5bar), indicating the oil cooler needs quite a bit of pressure through it for correct flow.

Sleeperx7

I think it might be the gauge. I just started the car almost three hours later, and the needle currently sits at well below 0 pressure. When the car starts it goes up and settles closer to 0 pressure, which is actually around the same distance from 0 to 20 lbs. I've never really heard of a problem like this though.

NZConvertible

A loose or dirty connection at the oil pressure sender can cause erratic readings. Check the wire is securely clipped onto the sender, and the connection is clean.

WAYNE88N/A

Whack on the pressure sender (NZ has a good pic of it's location above), or have someone else whack on it while you're looking at the gauge. The only time my gauge has gone up that high was due to a clogging oil filter...And a new sender unit fixed my "falls to 0 while running", which was found out by whacking on it... (the sender, that is)

Icemark

The other thing that just came to mind was the Oil sender condensor... double check that it is grounded and the wire to it is not broken

Sleeperx7

wires are all hooked up and seems to be fine. if the needle starts way below the zero mark and goes up to around 15 pounds... is that the same as me getting b/n 30 and 60 pounds like normal or am i about to blow my motor?

WAYNE88N/A

Have you changed your filter yet? Whacked on the sender? Cleaned the connector?