ive never heard of blocking that off, you should just shim it with a washer or two.

ive reused those orings and torn them before. it never showed in lower pressure, but the lifters were loud because it just aerated the oil.

 

Use a heavier weight oil first. Looser bearing clearances and a light oil will give you lower oil pressure.

Change it out to 20w50 and see what the pressure does.

 

He doesn't mean the relief valve on the oil pump itself...... this is something different and completely useless. I plugged off mine in my LS376-480 I have for my K5 Jimmy but it's not running yet so I don't know what my oil pressure is. Should be normal LS pressure though as in my case it's just an LS3 production engine with a cam installed after the fact and sold through the performance side.

I don't have a useful part number as the one I found online was some discontinued Dorman plug..... but the threads are M14X1.5. The one I found searching was the Dorman 65386 which I was told was a discontinued part...... so I just went to a parts place and asked for an oil pan drain plug with M14x1.5 thread and got what I needed.

That oil pan relief valve should not be relieving at idle though unless it's buggered somehow....... GM says they relieve between 55 and 70 psi..... lol..... real high tech. It's basically a cheapy little PSV like you find on an air compressor. It was only ever installed due to AFM..... and since pretty well most Gen 4's had an engine variation available with AFM all oil pans for the most part ended up with. Removing it will only result in your oil pump relieving pressure........ just like any Gen 3 ever made...... lol.

This is what the OP is talking about for everyone that doesn't know.





If deleting it increases your pressure at all it means it's stuck open..... may be that, a clearance issue somewhere or your pickup tube and o-ring.