Okay here's the deal...My FD sits at about 60 PSI for oil pressure at idle but whenever I give it gas it climbs right up to almost 120 PSI right along with the tach. I'm wondering what could be the cause because I don't want to drive the car around with that high of pressure and end up blowing the filter or even god forbid a seal/gasket. Anyone have any idea of what the problem could be or what I could do to fix it? I'm going to replace the filter and oil in a couple of days and see if that does anything. If not any other ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

Are you going by the factory oil pressure gauge?

 

The oil pump is mechanical so its speed/output in creases with engine speed. Your readings sound normal. If you notice that it stops increasing with rpm or if the idle pressure is noticeably lower, then you have a problem. Most OEM sensors will be inaccurate as they travel away from their target values, oil, temp, oxygen. Luckily Mazda at least got a good boost sensor. Sounds like you're good to go.

 

Yea its a factory one. I just wanted to make sure that I don't put out to much pressure and blow a filter or seal. It never has surged this high before now...I know it will fluctuate somewhat with the change of RPM's. However it seems to automatically jump to 120 PSI whenever I press the gas, even if its just a little. It may very well be normal just something I hadn't seen since I bought the car because it always sat between 60-80 PSI maybe 100 PSI if I really get on it but never jumped all the way up to 120 PSI. It might be normal just seems a little strange. Oh well lets hope for the best.

 

it could be a bad ground. on my fc the oil pressure read the same as yours until i discovered that the ground wire was misplaced.

 

Normally any problems like high or low oil pressure is due to the oil pressure sending unit. Rock auto has a closeout for around 12 bucks.

Larry

 

Yeah it sounds like a faulty ground in the sending unit. Is the car new to you? Did it sit for a long time? At worst(and I mean worst) you may have blocked oil passages.

 

I went ahead and changed my oil, filter, sensor, and metered out the wiring and everything looked good. After all that I started it up and it still pegs out to 120 PSI and you can hear the pump straining but after it warms up for about 5-10 minutes the pressure drops down to about 60 PSI and the pump stops straining. When I rev it up after that it jumps right back up to about 120 PSI but immediately drops back to around 60 PSI so I think its all operating normally now. Who knows maybe the filter had been on there forever and got a good clog in it since I just bought the car 2 weeks ago I had no idea how long it had been sitting and the last time it had the filter changed. I also changed out the spark plugs, fuel filter, differential oil, and the transmission oil just to make sure everything was good and new because if the oil filter hadn't been changed in forever god knows the rest probably has never been changed out. Anyways thanks to everyone who've been helping out with this. Good luck with all your projects and cars.