MARC MOSS Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Afternoon gents, i have recently been spending a fair amount of time on track days (at least one a month) and have a question regarding my oil pressure, something that hasn't happened before.When cold I get 75 psi on the gauge as normal and after she's warm i get around 30psi on tick over that ramps nicely up to 75psi again when up at 3.5k plus.Monday afternoon on track i noticed that my oil pressure had dropped down to 55psi even with the engine being maxed out. After noticing this it (and i haven't a clue how long it had been that way)was time to call it a day anyway so we packed up and started to drive home after about half an hour of letting the car cool and chatting etc. Now I know that anything above 50 is fine but its something I've never seenWhat i noticed then was that the pressure bit by bit was slowly increasing back up to the normal 70-75 psi when cruising.I fitted a mocal 13row cooler last week and i have a spoon baffled sump, my question is could this be down to the grade of oil i am using (10/40 semi)or the fact that i have a thermostatic plate that maybe drops the pressure when it opens?Or,,, is this normal and me being paranoid? I care very much for my car and she performs very well and i would simply like it to stay that way.. Having owned my starlet my confidence in engines has dropped significantly lol Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MARC MOSS Posted March 31, 2016 Author Share Posted March 31, 2016 saying all that i just noticed that the pressure was like it earlier in the day in this vid as wellhttps://youtu.be/VskIfhFMxLA Maybe normal? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Starlet__SR Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Sounds like the thermostat opening and closing. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MARC MOSS Posted March 31, 2016 Author Share Posted March 31, 2016 so ita a possibility that all that extra oil going through the cooler is the reason for the slight drop in pressure then i suppose Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Starlet__SR Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 so ita a possibility that all that extra oil going through the cooler is the reason for the slight drop in pressure then i suppose If its the first time the thermostat has opened then it could be yes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MARC MOSS Posted March 31, 2016 Author Share Posted March 31, 2016 If its the first time the thermostat has opened then it could be yes. The thermostat self bleeds though and it took an extra litre doing it when we filled it so I'm guessing it could be the extra 3 metres of pipe and the cooler that's doing it Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ollieh17 Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Higher oil pressure isnt always good anyway. High oil pressure=less flow Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Phil Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 (edited) Only thing that would freighten me is the thought that maybe your oil pump is slowly dieing and maybe the extra strain of the extra cooler and pipework has made that more obvious?I know sometimes when a fuel pump is dying its not any sort of immediate failure but rather at peak loads it fall short on supply.Ie it achieves rail pressure at idle but starts falling short when your map is holding those injectors close to wide open Just a thought as I've never had an oil pump fail and I've removed a couple of manky oem ones.Phil Edited March 31, 2016 by Phil Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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