I was driving home today and when I got on the freeway I hit the gas pretty hard and got up to about 65. After that I let up and when i accelerated again slowly it started ticking really bad. I thought I blew a header gasket. About a minute later I noticed I had no oil pressure. I pulled off the freeway immediately and checked the oil level, it was fine. The engine was ticking pretty bad and sounded like it was coming from the valve covers. I am thinking my oil pump went out.

I did drive it for about 3-5 minutes after the ticking started but I was barley hitting the gas. It did not get hot during those 3-5 minutes. Do you think I could have damaged the engine?

What would be the advantage of using a high volume or high pressure oil pump? Anyone know the part number for a good oil pump?
Is there anything else I should replace at the same time with the oil pump?

 

Hate to say it but it sounds like it's rebuild time. Just replacing your oil pump won't fix the ticking which is undoubtedly rod knock. Hopefully I'm wrong though - get a mechanical gauge on it to verify the low/no pressure reading.

 

It sure sounds like the worst case scenario Been there done that. Ended up with two tow bills and a couple of hours to tear it down, to see the damage. Had to find out, even though I was almost positive.

 

My brother had a 94 z28.. He was street racing and the oil pump went out in the middle of the race, and it actually sounded like desiel truck ticking. He couldnt rebuild due to the money, We put a new oil pump in it and that was 4 yrs ago and it still runs......it doesnt tick either? Lucky I guess.

My car had the oil pump pick up come out at a stop sign and lost all oil pressure. Shut it down and towed it about 1/8 mile to my house.....replace with a new oil pump....tach welded the pickup amd she still turning 8 grand no problems with no engine noise....yet, knock on wood.

 

That happened to me about 2 months ago. In the middle of rebuilding the motor right now. My screen at the bottom of the oil pick up tube was blocked by a bunch of crap. Good luck!

 

https://www.camaroz28.com/forums/par...it-lt1-855975/

I was watching closely to this thread and wanted to see what happened, so here it is incase you where interested also. I have been warning others of the risk of running boost and what might happen.

 

I finally got my car back on the road. I ended up pulling my oil pan and found out the oil pump drive gear had stripped out. I also checked the clearances on the bearings and they all were fine.
I replaced the gm gear with a lunati everwear gear, and bought a billet oil pump driveshaft to replace the cheap stock plastic one. I also got a melling oil pump and a gm white spring for it (my old oil pump appeared to work fine, but since I had the pan off I decided to replace it anyway).

I had to pull off the intake manifold to get the oil pump drive out. While the intake was off I cleaned it up and gave it a fresh coat of paint.
After getting it back together it ran fine but started leaking from my rear main seal. So I got a new rear main seal and also decided to get a new clutch because you have to remove the clutch to get the rear main seal out.
I got a Competition Clutch Stage 2.

Well everything is finally back together and it's running great with no valve-train noise. On startup my oil pressure is about 70 after warming up it's at about 45. This is a little higher than it used to be because of the GM white spring.
The stage 2 clutch grips a bit harder than the OEM clutch but it still works great around town. I can't take off as slow and smooth as my old clutch but it's not that big of a difference, I thought there would be more of a difference.

It feels great to finally be driving my supercharged Formula again.