Put header on yesterday. was driving around today with open headers, and car started runnign rough. Oil pressure guage went to 0, and car ran crappier. When I put it in drive, it stumbles real bad. No oil leaking, we looked everywhere under the hood and there is no oil leak. Could the headers have fried the oil guage wire?

some things: may have a burned (0r more) plug wire. o2's are not plugged in. I am running open headers right now.

 

Oil pressure sender is in the pan I believe so you couldn't have done damage to that. Knock sensor is on the side of the block but wouldn't be reason for oil pressure to go down. Did you notice any wires burned at all? Smell anything weird? Is there oil in the car? It's possible the gauge or the pump just happen to crap out at the time of the headers.

 

Pull the dip-stick tube out and check for metal flaking in the oil. If its there then yes your motor is screwed. If not then my guess is something went wrong with the oil pump or the oil pump pickup. When the motor lost oil pressure the lifters probably bleed down causing your valves to not open fully causing your engine to run like crap.

 

the sender in the pan is for the oil level. the oil pressure sending unit in behind the intake manifold under the egr valve.

pic here: http://shbox.com/1/oil_pressure_sensor.jpg

 

Oil pressure sender is not in the pan, it's on the block near the back of the intake, above the oil filter on the 93 models. Your thinking of the oil level warning guage.

It's possible the headers burnt the wire, or you may have even tightened the header with the wire wedged between.

Check the oil level first, then repost whether you have oil in it or not.

Your cars running like crap because your o2's are NOT hooked up. Once it changes loops, your not getting anything to the ECM and it has no idea where to go with the fuel trim, timing, anything. Don't drive it without the o2's. Your in for a big headache if you do.

-Shannon

 

im goin with the burnt wire..my last trans am did the same thing when i put headers in...check em out..esp no.8

 

I cant check my oil dipstick right now. The reason being, when I tried to put the oil dipstick tube in the block, it would only go about 3 inches in (it is supose to go about 6). Anyways, I was going to go to the chevy dealership and buy a new oil dipstick tube and see if that worked. I know, I should have not been driving aroudn without my oil dipstick tube all the way in, but ti seemed ok when I started it and I figured it would be OK for one day until I got a new dipstick tube.

I will go check out what you guys recomended tommorow when it is light outside.

 

Put the 02 sensors in, and the car still is not running right. I am going to change all the plugs and wires tommorow. Something I noticed, when I turn the key half way on, all the guages go into position except for the oil presure one, it does not move. Just checked out my friends car, and his oil pressure guage bumps up to 0 when his key is half way on. This leads me to believe the oil pressure sender maybe went bad.

Also, when the car is running, it is ideling around 1100 rpm, and it is usually around 800.

 

check to make sure header bolts are tightened and gaskets are seated...

if a leak gets bad enough it will feel like a blown headgasket... car with buck, stall, sound like crap and have absolutely no power..

i thought i blew my engine a week after installing my headers... got under there and heard a slight leak...tightened the bolts and cleared codes and she runs perfect

 

I hope this is true... I will check all the bolts tommorow, and I will be changing all plugs and wires.

 

what about his total lack of oil pressure??? are we forgetting about this.

 

Did you jack the engine up at all when you did the headers? You could have broken the sending unit, its on the back of the intake as stated earlier, next to the EGR. You could have cracked it, then the vibrations from running open headers and burning a plug wire (my bet) made it run rougher enough for it to unseat off of the part where the oil pushes the diaphram to the electronis of the pressure sending unit. Reach back there and see if you can move the oil pressure sending unit around if you can its probably broken its cheap to replace (~20bux at AutoZone?). Check your plug wires, check your plug wires, oh and did i mention, check your plug wires.

 

unbolting the oil pan and things are rattling down there


this is the 2nd bolt on LT1 bottom end i have seen go in 1 year im starting to be worried about my LT now

do we have glass bottom ends or something?!?!

 

could be the oil pump pick up fell off. That would explain no oil pressure.

 

I told you what probably happened. the oil pickup tube probably came off.