Oil pressure problem

[The Big Green]

A shop here in town built my smallblock. Trucks been running for like 4 years and it does just fine, still going strong. It's my little drag truck. Here's the deal, it carries about 50psi while at normal hwy speeds, but 12-15psi at idle, maybe a few numbers lower. It doesn't smoke, doesn't make any noises and should have anywhere from 6,000-8,000miles on it. It's plenty broke in and it gets shifted at 6,200-7,000, and has been to 9 a couple times. It's ARPed and has main studs, every bolt in the engine is ARP. It has a Mellings high volume pump. What's the deal here?

[limitedstreetoutlaw]

has it been like that from day one or just started getting lower

by the way the s-10 sounded good man

______________________________
1968 c-10 stepside "THE GRAPE APE"
all motor
1.56...60ft
7.41...1/8
89.41..1/8

[The Big Green]

Since day one. Everyone trys to scare me and sometimes it works but if it was so bad then I wouldn't be driving it today because it would be smoking, knocking, or both, and there's blown up too. It's just fine so I don't know. My 67 carries 80psi hwy and 60-70 idling.


Thanks man. Yours sounded mean and so did the Nova. We need to get the rides out every now and then. Saturday is the Stigler car show and cruise.

[swb85]

If it's always been that way then it's fine. That's about the same oil pressure I have in my 383 (since day 1) with a standard volume melling pump and generous bearing clearances. Been running just fine for the last 27k miles.

[limitedstreetoutlaw]

yea im with swb85 mine dosnt carry much more than 12 to 15 psi at idle either

mine didnt sound too bad for 2 fouled plugs huh lol
yea i plan to take it out more i dont think we could make stigler even though i would like to go but gonna try and get every thing checked out and make another atempt at the track one last time the weekend after

______________________________
1968 c-10 stepside "THE GRAPE APE"
all motor
1.56...60ft
7.41...1/8
89.41..1/8

[fryco]

Have you checked your oil pressure gauge??

My friend had a similar issue this summer with his IMCA sport mod. He pulled the motor, and took it back to the engine builder thinking he caught it early. The engine builder tore it down and reassembled, said everything was fine. I helped him reinstall the motor, we started it up, again no oil pressure.

After a hour or so of swearing, we noticed the warning light was not on though the (engine running) oil pressure gauge read "0". We knew the was at least 15-25psi of oil pressure because the light was off (electric sending unit preset). We obtained a different gauge from a friend, and you got it, it idled with 70psi.

Oil pressure gauges do go bad, its hard to find 2 that even will read the same!!! The gauge that died was a good Auto meter fluid filled Pro Comp, not a part store cheapy

Just my 2 cents-Maybe save you a headache

[team39763]

I recently had a similar problem with my 454 in my dually, it turned out to be a crankcase evac problem. Once I fixed it, the oil pressure got much better.

[cableguy0]

Small blocks with low oil psi at idle are really common. so long as you got 10psi for every 1k rpm your in good shape.

[MacAttack]

Gage idea is a good one: Mass produced things sometimes turn out to be NFG.

[The Big Green]

So I'm not alone here? lol. I'll check the gauge, it's worth a try but it's always been low since day one.


Oh, and Limitedstreet, mine runs crappy because of crappy BG Demon carb. I hate it, has a stupid dead spot at 2-2.5rpm. I've never changed my plugs but they seem ok. I still need to change them. I'll go run next weekend and see what I can do. I'll blow the tires clean off that's what I'll do lol.

[mdunn]

What was the main clearances set to during the rebuild? Was it checked? My guess is, just like metioned earlier, that the main clearances are a little loose. This will cause the oil pressure to be low at lower RPM's. I think you'll be fine, especially if you are not using any oil.