How much oil pressure is too much?

[steve-o_95_GST]

I finished my 6 bolt swap a few days ago and I have supprisingly high oil pressure. I used a new pump and no balance shafts but when Im at idle the needle sits at about the needles width under halfway and when Im crusing at about 3k its around 75-80% of the way up the gauge. Is this bad?, Im just wondering if my bearings will wash out due to my high oil pressure. I havent had a chance to beat on it yet due to break in peroid but Im thinking when I do the pressure will go up even higher.

-Steve

 

[GVR4592]

It depends on how high the oil pressure is. When I did my balance shaft removal, I would peg my 100 psi gauge by 3000 Rpm's. I blew out my front cover gasket and oil filter housing gasket in an hour.

http://www.utdsm.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album12

Porting the relief valve is how I fixed mine.

Those aren't my pics btw.

 

[BrokenTsi]

I finished my 6 bolt swap a few days ago and I have supprisingly high oil pressure. I used a new pump and no balance shafts but when Im at idle the needle sits at about the needles width under halfway and when Im crusing at about 3k its around 75-80% of the way up the gauge. Is this bad?, Im just wondering if my bearings will wash out due to my high oil pressure. I havent had a chance to beat on it yet due to break in peroid but Im thinking when I do the pressure will go up even higher.

-Steve

thats about where my oil pressure is. haven't had any problems yet, I've never heard of porting the relief valve unless you build a NT engine without oil squirters. Then the oil pressure will be SUPER high.

More oil pressure wont wash out bearings. I'd be more concerned about the turbo, all depending on what kind of turbo it is.

 

[dnhieu]

i plan on doing this because im building a n/a motor for my fully built 2.0. im really scared about shavings getting into my brand new 90's oil filter housing. how are you guys cleaning out all the shavings in it?

 

[TSIfreek]

i plan on doing this because im building a n/a motor for my fully built 2.0. im really scared about shavings getting into my brand new 90's oil filter housing. how are you guys cleaning out all the shavings in it?

Hot water dish soap and compressed air. Take everything apart as much as you can to prevent crap not getting cleaned out.

 

[compression]

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after an engine rebuild with no balance shafts i got this for about 2 weeks, it has settled down now though.

 

[dnhieu]

Hot water dish soap and compressed air. Take everything apart as much as you can to prevent crap not getting cleaned out.

thanks, i herd you can take the little piston thats in there out is this true? if thats the case im not to worried. also do you guys know how much i should port it?

thanks again
david

 

[GVR4592]

You want to port it toward the top of the piston as much as you can. Look at those pics and you can see how high it needs to go. Porting the hole larger isn't as neccesary. I had to do it twice because the first time I just made the hole bigger and that didn't work, then I realized that the size of the hole isn't the problem. So I ported it up as close as I could get without exposing the top of the piston.

 

[GRNDSM]

Why don't you guys get an actual oil pressure gauge before you start talking about oil pressure! Oil pressure before the oil filter (OEM locations), is not all that useful in the first place, but when you read it with a terrible factory "gauge" you get totally worthless information!

Personally, I like to run my oil pressure gauges where it actually matters: in the head. Because if your head is seeing pressure, so does the rest of engine (and you can't say the same about OEM location...).

 

[steve-o_95_GST]

I do plan on getting a mechanical oil pressure gauge when I get the funding. Where in the head did you find a spot to tap into?

I put a bit of seat time in the last 24 hrs and put about 200 more miles on my motor, I noticed the pressure at idle was down from what it used to be but its still pretty high when cruising at 3-4k (at 4k the factory gauge reads about 90% from the top of the gauge still.

How are the external coolers for just daily driving? Do they heat up pretty quick when you are in stop/go traffic or do they fare pretty well? I was looking around at them and I can put a pretty decent kit together for ~$250, I thought that I would do some porting on that 90' filter housing and I wouldnt mind removing the oil cooler from the cooling system aswell.

-Steve

 

[blue92laser]

Hey, anyone wanna keep me informed too. Just got done a ross racing piston/eagle rod build-up and no balance shafts, purchased one of those mechanical oil pressure guages from auto-meter and at a bone cold start up, it idles at 1500rpm pulls about 85-95psi of oil pressure, by the time it is fully warmed up and at around 750-850rpm it hits about 15-30psi, as soon as the motor is revved past 3500rpm...well, the oil pressure guage only hits 100psi...i smile when it goes that high, everyone else cringes, waiting for the housing to blow off or something...i dunno bout you guys, but i like my oil pressure sky high at 100psi. Shit I'd rather see it hit 100psi at 3500rpm than 40psi at 7,000rpm...you knock my drift??? *****just make sure that front case and oil filter housing are torqued down real tight hahah...****

 

[WatchItExplode]

I just fired up my car for the first time today after doing a "JDM low mileage" engine swap and '90 oil filter housing w/ external oil coooler. When I first started the engine my Autometer electronic oil pressure gauge read about 85 psi, then slowly climbed to about 95-100 psi. The engine is idling around 2000 rpm (probably because the engine is cold and because my timing hasn't been fine tuned yet). My gauge's sender is in the same location as the OEM sender was.

ANYWAY...after seeing my pressure gauge almost pegging, I got scared and shut down the engine. Can anybody give me a real answer as to why this is happening? Is it dangerous to let it idle and warm up to operating temperature at this high of a pressure?

 

[BUCK]

Are you running a lightweight Multi Grade Full Synthetic Oil? The little number should be no more than 5W or maybe 10W in Summer.

After 3 years mine still pegs when cold but not when Hot, so you aren't "hurting" anything - & of course we should all be warming these things up before we flog them.

Cold Oil pressures over 100 with BSE are normal - One of the reasons not to have an aftermarket Oil Pressure Gauge that pegs at 100 - & NEVER put a Mechanical Oil Pressure gauge INSIDE the Car~!

 

[blue92laser]

OK, now I'm quite confused....

1. Why can't you put the mechanical one inside the car?...doesn't make no sense to me why you can't.

2. I know that after several weeks, or even 500-1000 miles the oil pressure at idle and fully warmed up is going to be alot lower than the first few days or even a week. The bearings have to set in, high oil pressure at first start up is a very good sign the crank is gonna hold good oil pressure, under load. NOW AS FAR AS I KNOW THATS CORRECT TOO AND IN MOST CASES DOES HAPPEN. But hurting anythign with high oil pressure? I don't even think 100psi over 4,000 rpm is even ALOT. I think its just enough. Soon your gonna be throwing 300-400hp or whatever you guys are throwing at it, and you want it to have lower oil pressure? Word, thats weird on my part. But maybe I dont understnad something, anyone wanna fill me in?

 

[BUCK]

OK, now I'm quite confused....

1. Why can't you put the mechanical one inside the car?...doesn't make no sense to me why you can't.

2. I know that after several weeks, or even 500-1000 miles the oil pressure at idle and fully warmed up is going to be alot lower than the first few days or even a week. The bearings have to set in, high oil pressure at first start up is a very good sign the crank is gonna hold good oil pressure, under load. NOW AS FAR AS I KNOW THATS CORRECT TOO AND IN MOST CASES DOES HAPPEN. But hurting anythign with high oil pressure? I don't even think 100psi over 4,000 rpm is even ALOT. I think its just enough. Soon your gonna be throwing 300-400hp or whatever you guys are throwing at it, and you want it to have lower oil pressure? Word, thats weird on my part. But maybe I dont understnad something, anyone wanna fill me in?

Noone said you CAN'T put a Mech Oil Gauge inside the car but there are SCORES of Threads about them leaking inside the car & the Stock setup has proven pretty reliable so... ???

& I like the idea of a GOOD QUALITY Mechanical in the Engine bay as GRNDSM suggests.

 

[WatchItExplode]

& I like the idea of a GOOD QUALITY Mechanical in the Engine bay as GRNDSM suggests.

I like that idea too, and I was tempted to do it. But this project is already costing me too much money, and WAY too much time. Thanks for the reply though, I'm glad to know that the high oil pressure is normal.

By the way, I am running Mobile 1 full synthetic 5w30

 

[steve-o_95_GST]

Are you running a lightweight Multi Grade Full Synthetic Oil? The little number should be no more than 5W or maybe 10W in Summer.

After 3 years mine still pegs when cold but not when Hot, so you aren't "hurting" anything - & of course we should all be warming these things up before we flog them.

Cold Oil pressures over 100 with BSE are normal - One of the reasons not to have an aftermarket Oil Pressure Gauge that pegs at 100 - & NEVER put a Mechanical Oil Pressure gauge INSIDE the Car~!

Im running mobil standard 10w30 oil for break-in and until about 3-5k then I plan switching to mobil 1 10w30 full synthetic. I just got paid today so I was planning on getting an autometer oil pressure gauge to fill that 3rd hole in my pillar. I also let my car warm up fully in the morning and about 80-100 degrees during the day before I even start to drive it and I plan on warming it up fully before beating on it. I just dumped over 4k to get my car running again and plan on doing everything I can to keep it running for as long as possible.

-Steve

 

[timloomis]

ive had my mechanical oil psi gauge in-car for well over a year now,and no hot oil in my eyes yet.you have to be an idiot not to install it right.i dont trust the stock oil gauge.it still reads good oil pressure even when the idiot light(no oil psi) light is on.

 

[GVR4592]

It's not legal in almost every form of auto racing. It has to be mounted outside of the cockpit.

 

[Maglin]

Not to sure if this is going to post properly but here goes.

High oil pressure is very bad. When you are seeing 100+ PSI at say 3500 RPM their is a ton of pressure being exerted on those bearings. Static friction actually increases to an extent and you get what people say as "washing out the bearings" and you start to eat the bearings. You just can't be running that high of an oil pressure at those engine speeds. Also you WILL blow out gaskets and possibly lose an engine if not carefull as you can easily and quickly lose all you oil from this blow gasket/seal. You want 10 psi/ 1K RPM as a good rule of thumb. So unless you are turning 10K RPMS you don't want to see 100+ PSI of oil pressure. Also mentioned is your oil seals in your turbo's are going to get blown at those levels.

Get your oil press under control and you will be an improvment in gas milage and engine acceration speed. Or you can kept on thinking the same idea's that all this oil press is a good thing and everyone doesn't know what they are talking about. Maybe you might get away with it for a while. Eventually it will come around and really take a bite out of your behind. I've personally had a friend that thought the same way. 100+ PSI of oil press and about 1500 miles later almost all his bearings where washed out and of course it started to make some bearing noise.