I've got an h22a1, the oil pressure at times seems pretty low, wanting to know what everyone elses oil pressure looks like on start, idle, and while driving?

 

ive seen my idle pressure below 20 when hot..

60-65 high

 

keep in mind that your gauge could be off too.

my gauge reads rather low.. i put a manual unit on it for a test & it read much higher than my autometer gauge and they were connected at the same spot.

 

where is your sensor located? i used to have my oil gauge and feed line tee'd together, feeding from the oem pressure sensor port. i think that gave me some lower readings (65psi cold, 50-55 warm crusing, and 15-18 at idle on a defi d-gauge) now i have an autometer at the oil sandwich and it sees 80-85 psi cold, 65-70 cruising and 22-25 at idle.

these were also on different engines too but still i think location with affect readings. either way, the numbers arent as important as the pattern ex: cold startup you only get 20psi, thats a problem or the pressure doesnt increase with engine speed, that could indicate a problem as well.

 

I've got the prosport oil pressure gauge, I emailed them to see if it does in fact read low or not. I'll also check with my shop to see how they have the sender set up. The lowest it should be is 10psi is that right ?

 

depends on how low your idle is set...

what rpm

 

I have a prosport too on my B18b and it reads 85psi cold and idle like 28psi (750rpm).I have it located T with my oil pressure sensor.

 

lowest idle is about 1000, oil pressure goes down to around 5 =(

 

Pressure should be the same or very close no matter where the gauge reads from, unless there is a restrictor before gauge. And different motors will yield very different readings. SoMe pumps have higher pressure relief springs than others. And it's not just the bearing clearance that effects oil pressure, but cam to cAm cap clearance also has a huge effect.

 

Damn it, this is really scary sometimes.. still haven't had time to get back to the shop that did the install, but if it matters, the oil press sender is in fact T'd off of the oil feed line. Not sure if theres a restricter there though .

 

when my oil temps are up i see ~15psi at idle and 50-55 cruising.

 

From the manual its supposed to be 10 psi min at idle and I think 50 psi at 3500. For the past week I have been trying to figure out my oil pressure cause at idle mine has been going to 0 at times. I had a oil sandwich ,which I thought was causing the problem. I just put my turbo feed and sensor on the stock port just to see if it changed. But it didn't. So either could be my gauge (glow gauge) or my oil pump is FUBAR.

 

Very strange indeed, but yea if you have time swap in another guage quick to see if you get a different read. My motor was rebuilt recently, and oil pump was replaced as well so I'm pretty sure its nothing like that. I got a reply back from Prosport, and they said that its most definitely because the sender is T'd off, otherwise their gauges read almost close to accurate. Ill post back when i find out more

 

if the check engine light isn't comin on when your driving then dont stress too much about it. I had a crank bearing go bad due to a warped crank. Oil pressure slowly got lower and i thought it was the gauge takin a dump on me. Then the car threw a code when i went to hit vtec for low oil pressure. It let me know far before i was in danger of hurting anything.

If your oil pressure drops to a dangerous level chances are the check engine light will come on before you fubar anything.

 

Check engine light, or oil light

 

Can I ask what weight oil everyone is running as well? I just changed to 10-40 a few days ago, but did not seem to help much. If I'm boosting and driving her rough, i'tll still drop below 10.

 

thicker oil should bump up the pressure readings a little. could be a bad oil pressure gauge or sending unit if the thicker oil didnt help.

hook up a real mechanical oil pressure gauge and monitor. 5psi @1000rpm hot does not sound that good. that would be around 1-2psi at 750rpm......not good.

how much pressure do you get at 3500rpm?

 

if im driving the car nice.. i think 40-50 psi, but if im driving normally, 20-30. It looks as though the oil is just getting hot, which is why the psi drops when the cars been on for a bit and driven. My motor was built a while ago so I'm waiting for my machinist to tell me the clearances between the bearings, which is another thing that could cause low oil psi.. just in case

 

Another thing came to mind ... since the sender is T'd off of the oil feed line, would the thickness of the oil feed line show a lower reading ?

 

I was going through the same thing you were, a suggestion someone told me was to check my gasket between the oil pickup and oil pump inside the pan. turned out that was fine but I found that the oil I was using "quaker state full synthetic" 5w20 was super thin.

I had this oil sitting on the shelf for over a year and didn't think twice about using it. I had oil seeping everywhere. between the block and head and cam seals, you name it. so now I use brad penn 10W30 with no problems. oil pressure would be around 3-4 psi at idle. not good, so I would try a thicker oil and when you drain your oil, have someone analyze it for you. they can determine what you need. my oil pressure as it set's is 10PSi @ 750RPM. my oil feed -3AN is T'd to the sender also using prosport peak/warning gauge. hated that gauge beeping at me all the time. lol

 

Thanks for that suggestion, although I'm sure all the gaskets have been changed I will check on this too. Anyone else chime in about the sender being T'd off of a fatty oil feed line? Im going to check the thickness tomorrow.