today my oil pressure dropped from 60 to 40 and i took it to my friends house and then it dropped to 20. Sometimes when i would give it gas it would raise to 40 and other times it would drop to 5ish psi.

please help i have no idea whats going on!

 

change anything internal lately?

 

So what is your engine setup now? What have you been doing as far as driving habits in the past six months? Are you having any clacking noises like you've spun a rod bearing?

Steve

 

it has a knock but it comes and goes. i put a cam, oil pump etc. about six months ago

 

check your filter asap!!!! see if there is any metal... and if its not your daily driver i would probably take it off the road until you figure it out.... it could be a bad pressure spring in the pump. or it even could be a possible bad bearing... but if its intermittent im betting its probably a pump problem.

did you check your oil level??? one time i had a problem with gunk restricting oil return to the pan so it would starve the pickup and under heavy throttle suddenly i would lose pressure then be back a second later.... ended up with cooked bearings from oil starvation..

 

I had 1 at work and it ended up being the cam bearings spun, had to replace the engine...but more than likely its a pump or o-ring issue... I also had one that was just the cluster acting stupid... need to put a manual guage on it and compare it to the cluster to see where you are really at.

 

I had one bounce around like that once and it was the oil pressure sending unit. Replace this first. It's cheap and easy to do.

 

Definatly check it with a mechanical gauge before tearing it apart. It could be the sender or the cluster.

 

well its making a ticking noise. a mechanic friend said to put 20w in it and see if the pressure comes back if not its something else. my oil pump i got about 6months from texas speed when i did the cam...

 

Try not to drive any more until you've run this to ground. If your oil pressure is low with the mechanical gage too (which I suspect that it will be). drain the oil into a clean container and remove the filter. Then cut the filter open and look for metal in the paper filament of the filter. Then pour your oil through some kind of fine mesh strainer (like a paint strainer/funnel) and look for metal.

If you find metal, I'd pull the pan, check the oil pickup tube for obstructions and take the rod caps off of the rods (keep them straight as to which cap and bearing fits onto which rod, although with the cracked design, they will only fit back on one specific rod) and inspect the bearings and the rod journals. Then, get some plastigage and reinstall the rod caps and measure the oil clearance. If that's OK, start checking the mains and you can also replace the O Ring on the oil pickup tube. I could go on, but the possibilities start growing until you verify a few things.

Steve