Have a solid roller 396 and it has some major pressure problems.

1st question is...I'm not running oil restrictors, will this affect the pressure reading at the pressure sensor? Saying that the crank mains and rod bearings have sufficient pressure but altering the reading at the actual sensor since it's up top.

What problems are there with having a solid set up and not having oil restrictors? I'm under the assumption that it just pumps way too much oil to the top when it doesn't really need it. But would it cause a pressure depletion like having a whaked out bearing bleeding off pressure.

The set up has been apart several times for refreshing and I think that all the cleaning up here and there and polishing the crank before it's reassembled caused the bearing clearences to get out of whak and it may be time to get it align honed/bored and step up to some oversize bearings. I had it suggested to me that I should have the rod journals ground down to 2" or 1.9" to reduce friction (ie: nascar).

Kinda sucks, motor has probably 7k miles on it give or take and it's on it's way out given the oil pressure issues, I'm running Valvoline VR1 SAE 60 in it right now...looks like molassas.

Feel free to give any input, thanks.


PG

 

PG

 

You haven't really stated with is wrong with the motor pressure wise. You hint towards possibly needing restrictors up top and stuff like that, but a specific question would be more answerable.

 

Well oil pressure is ok for the time being right now...cold pressure around 40-50psi and when warmed up it stays around 20. This is with SAE 60 btw. Seems like anything thinner won't hold pressure when warmed to temp. Tried GTX SAE 40 and was fine untill temp came up, after that it would fall to 10 psi at a 1100-1200 rpm idle. When WOT it would start to go up past 40 psi and then start dropping off going back down toward 20. With SAE 60 it holds pretty good up to around 60 psi at WOT. I'd like to see it around 70 or 80 psi when up around 6500 to 7500 rpm (rev limiter set at 7700). Seems to be the bearing clearences are too excessive, but they're new bearings that have maybe 4k miles on them. Hate to think it's the machine shops fault but that's what I'm leaning toward or something is opening up under a heat condition or rpm condition. Planning on pulling the motor and getting everything checked out...don't know what else really to do. One thing I might do before yanking it is put a manual guage on it to see if it coinsides with the electronic one in-dash. *sigh* oh well...it's only money.


PG

 

search for cavitation....and put a manual gauge at the port near the oil filter