njenson

OK, i was just driving around a little and i noticed that my oil pressure seemed a little low. My symptoms go like this: at idle the guage shows the pressure just on or a little below the first mark, when i hit the gas the guage moves but just enough to barely get to the middle mark. Other than that it runs pretty good. Also, i checked the oil level as soon as i got home and everything looked ok, but i did figure out that it has a 5w 20 blend in it (complete accident just me being stupid and not paying attention)

my question is what is going on? the pressure was always good before and it is running fine but im not moving it until i figure out the deal.

Dave89IROC

put your normal oil back in it, and see where it sits

njenson

yea, that is on my to do quickly list now, but its been like 2k into the change and i just noticed the drop now (meaning to the best of my knowlege this just started to happen). but i dont know it does seem like the top end is showing low, and being that it was warm and i live 5 miles from work i dont get the chance to see it that warm that often.

Another question too, what do each of the ticks represent on the in-dash guage? i keep reading all the other posts and they say psi this and psi that

Lees94Formula

You shouldn't be worried. As long as you're seeing at least 10 psi per 1000 rpm its fine. Gm specs a minimum of 6 psi at idle. I know on my 94 the guage goes from 0 to 80 and that would put my first mark at 20 psi, middle at 40. I typically see 18-20 at warm idle and it will jump to 45 or so at WOT. Thats with 0-40 Mobil 1. But keep in mind the factory guages are not regarded as very accurate. You should go back to a normal LT1 oil though..that 20 wt is not thick enough and could cause excessive wear over a long period of time.

njenson

yup,i know. Just got done changing it. put in some 5-30 val. hm. i guess its just the finals that ive got on tuesday making me a little paranoid... but at least it made me figure out i had the wrong stuff in there... which was a first for me (and i will admit it was a dumb mistake).

on the way back from the folks house (about 20 miles) everything looked ok once i thought about it and saw the numbers in the guage. about 35-40 at crusing rpm

quulbreeze

mine had me worried for a sec because at cold start its like about 55 psi and 18-20psi at warm idle. at WOT it goes a little over the 40psi mark but then you cant trust that gauge. for piece of mind do a real oil press check and take it from there.

njenson

yea i dont know. i know mine is a little higher when its cold... which is probably why i thought i had a problem (again i only live about 5 miles from work so it hardly has a chance to warm up by the time i get home)

now if i could only figure out why it likes to idle high when its cold ill be all set