Resolved No oil pressure!! Please help

[Chiefsublime]

So I finally finished installing my built 2.3 l stroker motor and all the accompanying mods etc battery relocate, link V3 with SD and e85 components. Super pumped to get out there and start driving/tuning.

So after the past several months of work to get to where I am now. You can imagine my disappointment when I turn the key to start it and see that there's no oil pressure whatsoever. Not sure if I got or some miracle, but I forgot to plug in my fuel pump after installing the 450lph. Fortunately I did that because I'm not sure with my excitement if otherwise I would have noticed right away, but my oil pressure was at zero. Part of me thinks that if it had just started up I might not have noticed in time.

I followed another thread which details how to prime the oil pump with the timing still intact. So I went ahead and did that and cranked it again after I saw oil coming out of the ports in the lifters. When I went to crank it was more of the same, but this time there was air bubbles coming out of those ports since I had recently filled them with oil in the priming stage. My first thought was okay maybe the oil pick up tube got bumped when I was moving or installing the engine, but I removed the oil pan and nothing indicated that it had been. Just to be thorough I pulled it off and regasketed the pickup tube. I still have the oil pan off, I submerged the pickup tube in a container of oil to do a test to see if that had fixed it. Much to my dismay it has not. So I am kind of lost ATM.

I'll answer the common ones. No I'm not relying on the stock gauge. I have a mechanical gauge that has been tested and I know works. The engine was just built before I got it. The oil pump has no play and has all new parts, BS eliminated, that's all I can think of ATM. So I've just been trying to run down the list/follow the flow chart, but I'm currently a bit stumped. Any help/advice is much appreciated!!! Thanks!

 

[luv2rallye]

This is quite a long shot (with constant zero oil pressure, and you checking everything else, I thought perhaps need a long shot, tee, hee) but could you have the bad oil stub shaft that sometimes gets installed? See timeline 16:08-17:30 here

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.

 

[Chiefsublime]

Huh, I didn't know about this. So I'll take a look. (You're right about that) The only other thing I can think of is the oil pressure relief spring being stuck in the open position. Thanks!

 

[luv2rallye]

Well don't get your hopes up - it's a very long shot (plus labor intensive to check). Check the oil pressure relief spring first ( and anything else you can think of) - it's far more likely.

 

[Chiefsublime]

So mine is a 6 bolt and he mentions in the video it's a 7 bolt part. Also on the one he shows there's no heat toning where the stub is welded to the shaft like you see on the correct shaft (I've also noticed it on all the ones I've seen) not that this is 100% definitive, but I'd say even more highly unlikely.

Also I'm not sure this would cause a lack of oiling to the rest of the engine would it? Still I appreciate the info as I'd never heard of this part being out there.

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[DSMPT]

but this time there was air bubbles coming out of those ports since I had recently filled them with oil in the priming stage.

Are you sure the pressure gauge is working properly? and did you block off the balance shaft oil feed holes?
I don't know how you primed but if you saw the oil and air bubbles coming from the lifters/rocker arms, then the oil pump is working and building some pressure at least.
That's normal you see some air bubbles coming out while priming. To bleed the air from the entire engine without running the engine, you would need some time, more than you imagine usually, especially if you have an air cooled oil cooler or/and if you didn't bleed the lifters before installing.
Put the oil pan and oil back and remove the timing belt, spin the oil pump sprocket by an electric hand drill for a while, when the pump is bled and starts to suck the oil you can feel some load on the sprocket through the drill and you would start to see oil and air coming from lifters/rocker arms in a while. If you don't feel the load forever, then the pump is not sucking up oil from pick up for some reason.

 

[Chiefsublime]

While I had the oil pan off I checked the BS bearing oil passages and they appear to be blocked off. Bearings are rotated so you see the journals and not the galleries. Yes, it's a mechanical pressure sensor, but I tried another one just to be safe. I could see the needle move as I used a hand pump to pump oil through the pressure sensor port on the ofh. There's a good write up on this site on how to prime the oil pump without removing the timing belt. Basically you pump it in through the pressure sensor port until you can see it flowing through the head and building pressure. It was a minimal amount of pressure, but it was at least registering on the pressure sensor. However the pressure would pretty quickly bleed off as I was pumping. So there's got to be an oil passage somewhere that isn't oriented correctly or is leaking or something. I was really hoping not to have to take the timing etc off, but I'm running out of options here. I'm going to pull the valve cover and see if there's anything going on up there. Pull the lower timing cover after that and if I haven't found anything by then I will have to pull the rest of the s*** apart!! PS I do not have an external oil cooler hooked up currently. The ports are just blocked off ATM. I'm wondering if maybe one of the oil squirter block off bolts isn't leaking or something? Idk, but running out of options as far as what it could be here. A friend of mine is supposed to be coming over tomorrow. So I'll probably pull the oil pan again and set up a bucket of oil to submerged the puck up tube so he can crank it and I can look for anywhere the oil might be going for signs of leakage. Try that before pulling the timing and everything else I guess.

 

[Chiefsublime]

FIXED!!! So I finally figured it out! Thanks in part to this video

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for bringing to light the importance/specificity of the parts within the oil pressure relief system.

So I had basically gone over everything else that it could be and upon inspection of my oil pressure relief valve I noticed that the crush washer used was thicker than the one that was on another oil filter housing that I have laying around also there was a bunch of built up red Loctite that had created basically a secondary washer between the oil pressure relief Bolt and the oil filter housing.

Here are some pictures to highlight what I'm talking about.

Essentially what this did was shorten the spring by moving the spring seat back further out of the housing in turn allowing oil to constantly be bled off back into the oil pan. It was not plainly obvious to me until after watching that video.

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[92Turbski]

Whoa, good find, man!

 

[Chiefsublime]

Whoa, good find, man!

Thanks! Yeah it wasn't an easy one that's for sure, but I wasn't giving up til I figured it out. The YouTuber who's video I posted has some really good content. That one in particular helped me in identifying it. After seeing how a little variance in any part of the relief valve can make such a big difference in pressure etc. It all came together. It also got me thinking that making adjustments to the OPRV to reduce excessive oil pressure might be a better solution than porting the filter housing itself. It would take more math/mechanical engineering than I'm capable or willing to do ATM, but that's what it's there for. So why not use that instead? Plus it wouldn't require disabling half the engine to do. All I had to remove was the drive belts and harmonic dampener (it was still a little tight, but was able to get it). Just a thought. Maybe someone will figure that out and run with it.

 

[danl]

Good catch.

While you are at it, replace the rubber hose going to your wastegate with something more substantial and route it away from the exhaust manifold.

 

[Chiefsublime]

Thanks. Yeah, I definitely don't plan on leaving it like that, but I've got bigger fish to fry before I start worrying about stuff like that. I finally got the oil pan to stop leaking! Third times the charm. . Now I've gotta get it to idle/stay running on it's own. Just going down the list from most to least important items. That's towards the bottom, but def on there.

 

[DSMPT]

FIXED!!! So I finally figured it out! Thanks in part to this video

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for bringing to light the importance/specificity of the parts within the oil pressure relief system.

So I had basically gone over everything else that it could be and upon inspection of my oil pressure relief valve I noticed that the crush washer used was thicker than the one that was on another oil filter housing that I have laying around also there was a bunch of built up red Loctite that had created basically a secondary washer between the oil pressure relief Bolt and the oil filter housing.

Here are some pictures to highlight what I'm talking about.

Essentially what this did was shorten the spring by moving the spring seat back further out of the housing in turn allowing oil to constantly be bled off back into the oil pan. It was not plainly obvious to me until after watching that video.

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Just a little tip here. The thicker washer is not the direct cause of no oil pressure issue. It would have lowered the oil pressure little but as long as if the plug was threaded in to the OFH you should still have had sufficient pressure. Adding washers in there is a technique to lower oil pressure instead of porting. IF you really got back the oil pressure by removing that thick washer and loctite deposit, then I guess there are 2 possibilities that was causing the no pressure issue.
The pressure relief valve plunger was stuck open. Or/and your OFH is ported too much or improperly.