Thread: is the oil pressure too low?

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charouleau-gap.jpg

This is different wheels and tires.....on my fourth set of tires in 2500 off road miles......

low O/P with engine on its nose your pick up is in the rear so probably not getting much oil to make O/P

That pic is probably a 45 deg slope...it doesnt look steep in the pic. Runs fine oil pressure at that attitude.....it's the steeper ones I worry about. It has a Mororso accumulator that operates via solenoid valve off the oil pressure sender but I have never used it. Usually, when you are dropping off a 5 or 6 ft vertical (90 degree) drop off, the engine is at an idle and not much is happening (except the pucker). I dont have the guts to go off the 10 ft verticals.....they put the xfer case in front wheel drive and gun the engine as it hits to pull the front out so it doesnt endo. Kenny Davis probably has the eggs to do the big drops. The little hill in the picture stops most amateur quad riders, by the way.

Stock sbc'sl, ie stock oil pump, won't run alot of pressure. 12psi warm at low idle and 30 to 35 running down the highway is perfectly normal. But I may be like you that warm idle pressure always bugged me. But I have 100,000's of miles on many of them with that kind of oil pressure.

by the way, is there only 1 port to check the oil pressure? I mean so I don't have to squirm in the tight place to remove the current sender.

Some older blocks have a plug above and to the left of the cam on the top front before the intake this will give you an O/P reading too if block is old enough to have it.

I don't know what is "normal" for a sbc but the one I had in my 23 idled at 45 and got up to 70 going down the road. One thing you might have is a mismatch between the sender and gauge. Gauges require a certain ohm rating on the sender, like 90-270 or something similar. If the sender is not what the gauge wants to see the readings will be off. Stick the mechanical one in there and test it, then you will know.


Don

Got some Brad Penn oil, 10w-40, and a new wix oil filter. Runs at about 40-ish while driving at around 2K to 3K. Think I will stick with the brad Penn for the Zinc ('66 283 sbc). Seems to be running fine with the current setup.