My car has low oil pressure under load and at idle when hot. I confirmed this with an aftermarket mechanical pressure gauge. I read the FSM for the lubrication system and am ready to pull the front cover to check/replace the o-ring. I will also pull the oil pan to check the pickup tube and other parts.

When cold the car gets roughly 25psi at idle and near 60 psi above 2k rpms. When it warms up I get 4-15 at idle (the longer it sits at idle the farther it drops) and roughly 45psi over 2k rpms. I'm hoping that it's the o-ring. The engine was a Mazda reman with 29k miles on it.

How common is a failure of anything other than the e-shaft thermopellet and the front cover o-ring? The engine seems to run pretty strong, but I need to address this problem before I do any other work to the car.

Also, can I remove the metering oil pump when I do this job and remove the lines at a later date when I pull the intake manifold? Will that cause a vacuum leak if I dont block the oil injector ports (but leave the injectors in)?

 

if you want to premix just get the Banzai Racing OMP eliminator kit: http://www.banzai-racing.com/products_S4_omp_bop.htm

 

Yeah I'm definitely going to be running that setup. I was just wondering if I could pull the pump now and remove the lines/injectors later since the front cover will be off, but the intake manifold will not.