High Oil preasure?

[boost_or_bust]

put in a mech. oil preasure gauge today and it reads 20psi at idel and as soon as i get into higher RPM's it pegs out at 100psi! what could cause this and can it be fixed quick?

 

[blackGSX2g]

Sounds about what my motor reads. Are your readings with the oil fully warmed up or cold start? When your oil is cold, pressure will be much higher than warmed up. I get about the same figures you are posting when my motor is fully warmed. I'd say you have nothing to worry about.

 

[95blackGsTurbo]

I agree. My rebuilt motor used to do that for the first couple minute's after startup. Since our cars don't have pressure relief valve's there is no way to moderate the maximum oil pressure. I would try and stay away from pegging the gauge though. To much oil pressure can lead to erroded bearings and even blow the filter off of the oil cooler. (And who says you never learn anything at school ) After a while it should calm down to about 10 or so at idle and 60ish at higher rpm's.

 

[NitrousPete]

What weight oil are you running? Winter in Illinois can definately thicken up some oil. As 95blackgs sort of mentioned, without a relief valve cold, thick oil will have a tough time flowing back out of the bearings quickly enough and cause high backpressure to the pump. The good news is, chances are your bearing clearances are still pretty tight if you're getting spikes like that when cold

Let her warm up a bit and switch to a good 30 weight oil if you're not already. A good synthetic like M1 will be less likely to thicken up during extreme weather also.

Also, barring a manufacturing defect, the burst pressure of most oil filters is 200+psi