No Oil Pressure

[killab443]

Ok I finally got the engine into my 1g eclipse. I bought the block used off of a guy in Penn. Have no way of contacting him since its been so long. Anyway, I finally finished wiring up my engine and getting it in the bay. i turn it over and I get a start. Car runs but has 0 oil pressure. Theres a massive lifter tick. ( I suposed due to the lack of oil). Now is there anything it could be without being the oil pump? I put 5 quarts of oil in it. The car ran for a little less then a minute until I noticed nothing was squirting from the lifters and the gauge looked lifeless. Does it take longer then a minute to get pressure on a bone dry engine? Also the engines balance shafts have been eliminated.

 

[half-cocked]

First off, did you use a quality assembly lube? If you did you probably didn't do harm to the engine. The block probably has little to do with it seeing that the oil pressure is measured right after the oil pump. Did you install the balance shaft eliminator kit correctly, by correctly I mean did you make sure the block bearings holes did NOT line up with the oil feed oils of the block? Do you have the oil squirter's installed? Did you prime the oil pump with a drill?

If you did line the bearings holes up with the oil feed holes in the block, oil will be pouring out of the holes thus reducing oil pressure. If you left the oil squirter's out, oil will be pouring out of the holes that feed them, thus reducing oil pressure. If you didn't prime the oil pump with a drill or pack the oil pump with oil/grease/Vaseline the pump has to pump air until it draws oil up through the pick up tube, through the pump and then through the engine, and that might take a while.

The block off bearing and oil squirter problem can be easily remedied with the engine in the car, but to prime the oil pump with a drill you must pull the engine. BUT you can try this, go to a marine parts store and ask for a drill pump motor. If the guy making $6.00/hr. behind the counter looks at you funny tell him its used to do oil changes on inboard boat engines, should cost no more than $15-20. What this is is a positive displacement pump, you connect it to the banjo bolt on the turbo oil feed line, connect it to the drill and go to town. This should draw the oil through the passages, remember this will take a little while seeing oil has to be drawn through all the passages in the block and head till it gets to that feed line.

 

[GST with PSI]

1 minute with no oil pressure is a long time. a primed engine should have pressure in under 5 seconds. the first thing you should do before you try anything else is get a manual oil pressure gauge and hook it up to get a true oil pressure reading. after about 3 seconds running, the oil film between your berings gets overheated and provides 0 lubrication. no pressure means no movment of oil between berings, which means your running enging is rotating virtually metal to metal. all the assembly lube in the world won't save your engine without oil pressure. right about the berings though. if you messed up one main bering your screwed. the mains feed the rods, chances are your main and rod bering are shot if starved long enough.

 

[half-cocked]

A quality assembly lube has the consistancy of elephant snot. Heat breaks oil/lube down, if he used copious amounts of lube it should be sufficient enough to run the engine for under a minute without pressure.

 

[GST with PSI]

i disagree. assembly lube is made to liquify and mix with your oil as temp increases(and without pressure it will heat up quick) without altering the properties of your oil. it has almost the exact chemical properties as oil but is not a liquid at room temp, making it easy to use while reassembling you engine. one minute is more than enough time for an engine to prime itself after startup, so if you could run one minute on assembly lube without oil pressure, why did you suggest him to prime his engine externally before running.

 

[killab443]

I get pressure now. Infact a get perfect pressure and no bearing problems yet/ I primed the pump with one of those bug/insect sprayers. WORKED EXCELLENT. Now I can idle it and just listen to that baby purrrrrrr.