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For those with an oil pressure gauge…
What sort of oil pressures are normal? I just intalled an gauge in my "soon to be" track rat. It runs about 40psi at idle when cold and about 80psi at 3k. Because of a leaking rear tranny seal (to be fixed Thursday) I haven’t yet had the opportunity to run it hard for an extended period. In the limited driving I could do I saw about 25psi at idle and about 70psi hot.
Supposedly, the engine has about 135k on it.
Chuck Taylor might be able to chime in on this also, but my typical oil pressures are relatively low at idle (15-ish) and upwards of 70psi on track.
However, E30’s have an oil starvation issue in long sweepers. I should pay more attention to it, but the oil pressure probably dips to less than 20psi in some corners and I have seen the idiot pressure light come on also. Obviously that’s not good especially when you’re racing up in the top end of the rev range at the same time.
Chuck installed a crank scraper last off season and has seen significant improvement in preventing oil starvation so far this year. I would recommend installing one (especially while you’re doing work on the motor anyway). Chuck’s Company (Factory 3 Performance) does happen to sell them also.
The only reason I haven’t put one in mine is the motor has over 270k on it so I am just waiting for it to torpedo and will install one on the new motor before it goes in.
Thanks for the info guys. It sounds like the motor is reasonably healthy, oil pressure wise.
I’m aware of the oil starvation in sweepers and intend to install a crank scraper in the near future. With only 135k on the engine I figure it would be worthwhile to do.
kchildre wrote:
[quote]Chuck installed a crank scraper last off season and has seen significant improvement in preventing oil starvation so far this year. I would recommend installing one (especially while you’re doing work on the motor anyway). Chuck’s Company (Factory 3 Performance) does happen to sell them also.
[/quote]
I am building a car (get it back from the cage builder todayB) ) and I also put a windage tray in to scrape the oil off the crank. I don’t know how that affects the oil pressure yet since I don’t have my oil pressure gauge hooked up yet, just wanted to share some of notes on installing it.
I got the tray from IE and had to do some major grinding to install it. I figured that not all engine are exactly alike and that I might have to do some grinding. I had to take off more than 1/8 inch on a couple of fingers and enlarge the oil pump hole by 1/4 inch in some places. Hopefully the Factory Performance windage tray doesn’t require that much grinding.
The main bit of advice is that before you install the subframe, start the engine for a second to see if the tray hits the crank. I turned the crank by hand and nothing hit, but then when the front end was assembled and I started the engine the tray was still hitting the crank and had to disassemble and regrind.
Hopefully for all that work it helps with the oil starvation problems that people have been talking about.
kchildre wrote:
[quote]Chuck installed a crank scraper last off season and has seen significant improvement in preventing oil starvation so far this year. I would recommend installing one (especially while you’re doing work on the motor anyway). Chuck’s Company (Factory 3 Performance) does happen to sell them also.
[/quote]
I am building a car (get it back from the cage builder todayB) ) and I also put a windage tray in to scrape the oil off the crank. I don’t know how that affects the oil pressure yet since I don’t have my oil pressure gauge hooked up yet, just wanted to share some of notes on installing it.
I got the tray from IE and had to do some major grinding to install it. I figured that not all engine are exactly alike and that I might have to do some grinding. I had to take off more than 1/8 inch on a couple of fingers and enlarge the oil pump hole by 1/4 inch in some places. Hopefully the Factory Performance windage tray doesn’t require that much grinding.
The main bit of advice is that before you install the subframe, start the engine for a second to see if the tray hits the crank. I turned the crank by hand and nothing hit, but then when the front end was assembled and I started the engine the tray was still hitting the crank and had to disassemble and regrind.
Hopefully for all that work it helps with the oil starvation problems that people have been talking about.