Not sure how relevent this is to your post, but I had low oil psi (40) on my 388 stroker when I ran it the first time. I changes the oil filter before doing anything else, and that solved the problem. The builder said it was a kendall, but I didn't see the name "kendall" on it. He also cut it open, but didn't find anything that would keep the pressure relief open.

 

I have a 94 Camaro that will loose pressure. I have tried just slowly accelerating in first gear, bringing the RPM's up slowly, and I see a pressure drop around 5K. My opinion is the pump is sucking the pan dry. The oil is in the top of the motor and not draining to the pan fast enough. I would think a higher capacity oil pan would solve the problem. Since I don't drive mine much I'm not putting forth the effort to fix the problem.

Also I seen where you were using 20W-50. Try using a synthetic 5W-30 and see if that will help. Maybe the lighter weight oil will drain to the pan better.

 

Has anybody tried one of those oil accumulators before..You know the one that adds more oil when pressure drops.

 

my car has had this 'hard acceleration/pressure drop' trait from the beginning. Changing to AC filters from other brands has raised the overall oil pressure numbers, but still, under hard (at or near WOT) the pressure will drop back to around 40psi. A few times that pressure has dropped to 0... I shut the car off immediately and upon restart everything was fine. A moderate approach to going WOT results in the pressure rising to 60+ psi and stable. Seems that acceleration is the common denominator which might rule out clearances being the issue.

BTW. I have 112k on my car and it's the same way now as it was at 50k. When I used to autocross it, the pressure was usually consistent in the straights, but wide, sweeping corners that allowed some good acceleration would result in the pressure drop (to about 40psi) I depicted above. Anything above 800rpm and it holds 40-45psi cruising. Idle is 25-30psi cold. Stock pan/pump/pickup.

Go figure. I'm also running mobil 1 15w-50 for my own peace of mind. I've ran 5w-30 and 10w-40 and the pressure variance is negligible and the same traits are seen. Our nitrous'd toy runs a melling HV pump in a 355 bottom-end and has the similar results. Perhaps oil pressure is being diverted from the sender during hard acceleration...?

 

I WAS RIGHT!!!!!! to Myself. I put on the moroso windage tray and oil pan baffle. No more problems.

 

well glad I was wrong, that was a much easier fix then what I thought was wrong. Good Luck

 

Are they the same baffle and tray you talked about a couple of days ago.I have the same problem along with mant many lt1 owners.A gm rep told me this was common in lt1's and not to worry.So how hard is it to drop the pan??For under 30.00 bucks this problem can be fixed minus labor and the cost of a new pump since the pan is off.Does anybody know the labor charge for this????????Sorry I am a pain in the *** old man.

 

Ya I used the same parts I talked about a couple days ago. part# 710-23020, 710-23000, and a melling pump from autozone with a spring shimmed 3/16ths. I heard its only about $200 labor but I bet it's more. It took me all day. I had to take off the y pipe, driver header, steering, starter, and take out motor mount bolts.

 

Was the windage tray and also the baffle a direct bolt in? Or did you use aftermarket main studs?? Any triming of the oil pan or tray to make it fit? I'm building a 383 right now and was thinking of using this windage tray

http://www.jegs.com/cgi-bin/ncommerc...41&prmenbr=361

But since you had good results with the Moroso one and it is much cheaper I may consier that one.

Thanks,
Rob

 

I had the same exact thing happen on two differnt Gen 1 SBC engines. Never found the cause but I believed it was sucking the pan dry. Mine would happen even sitting still. This was with a 6 quart pan.

From then on I have heard not to use a high volume oil pump as it will send all the oil to the top of the engine and suck the pan dry.

Ken

 

I just used the stock studs. I think you might have clearance issues with a stroker and using the stock studs. The only thing I had to do was to drill a new hole for the dipstick. The only other thing is that a stock engine only has 3 studs and 1 bolt for the oil pump so the front portion of the tray doesn't get bolted to anything, but I don't think that will cause any problems.

 

You stated above you were spinning your motor to 5k+ while "just sitting there"?

I have never been a fan of reving (and holding) the motor that high with no load on it

 

do you smart guy's here think a canton oil pan will solve this promblem as well.AS many lt1's I suffer from this promblem mine does also.I was going to do what green did but figured just put a new pan since its off anyway.

 

I was going to get a new pan too, but I heard there are fitment problems with the canton pans. Plus, it was a lot cheaper.

 

I'm sorry, but something about this problem doesn't feel right.

If the root cause of the problem were the oil pan, then all fbodys would have this problem. An oil pan may have bandaided the problem (perhaps well for now), but I'm in the camp that believes you have not fixed the real problem.

I don't know how fast your car is or how hard it hooks, but when I romp on my car (high 13 second) in 1st & 2nd to redline, oil pressure stays at a constant ~55 psi (according to the factory oil pressure gauge). Are you using an aftermarket gauge?

Does this become a problem when our cars start pulling some real G's?

IMHO, if you haven't done something to the car since this started, then something happened that you haven't yet found.