MadMike 97 Z28

So the car has been running fine since the install was finished last week, but last night i opened her up a little bit and the car didn't want to hold idle afterwards. So i kept the revs up to get it home. Today i cranked the car up to see if it still was acting up and it ran fine. So i pulled it in the garage and checked all the fluids, looked for leaks, and found no problems. So i went to drive the car around the block and it did fine until i began to bring it back. It would struggle to hold idle if i had my manual fan switch on high so i turned off the manual override and it would idle fine. So i pulled it in my driveway then let it idle and it held fine with the fan off but the oil pressure was low enough to make the "check guages" light come on. So i shut the car off. Then after a few minutes tried to restart it to see if the pressure was back up. The car turned over very slowly like the battery was almost dead or like something was in a bind, but i finally restarted it by giving it a little throttle while turning it over. Still had low oil pressure at idle and the light came on again.

im at a loss the car runs great when off idle all the problems happen when its sitting at idle.

all thoughts and opinions are appreciated

shoebox

It's kinda bad etiquette to post a link to another forum like that. If someone was not a member there, they could not even respond. You should just post the question here, rather than the link.

95Blackhawk

Dude,

USE. PERIODS. I. was. out. of. breath. 1/2. way. through. your. paragraph. and. made. me. not. want. to. read. further.

MadMike 97 Z28

sorry guys post edited.

ACE1252

You say it has low oil pressure at idle.....what is the idle rpm and oil pressure when acting up?

MadMike 97 Z28

Idle is approx 900 and oil pressure is in the 5-10 range when the light goes on

RUDEDOG

How was the oil psi before the cam install? Did you change the cam bearings? How many miles? By your description it sounds like a bearing issue.

MadMike 97 Z28

the oil pressure before the install was maybe at the very lowest 15psi. the car has 113,000 miles i didn't change the bearings.

if it was a bearing would it not be making noises?

RUDEDOG

The first sign of bearing failure is low oil psi. If you address the problem early you can sometimes reuse parts and change bearings. If you keep running it you will get noise and thats parts damage. You could wear out cam/crank journals that will then require machine work or replacement.If it starts knocking hard, rod big ends might require resizing. Plus more metal will be circulated and damage other parts and/or block oil passages and the carnage continues and the price goes up. Are there any metal particles in your oil or filter?

MadMike 97 Z28

not a 100% sure but i think there is some shavings in there

this is rediculous im so pissed right now!!!!!!

i guess now i need to know if anything could cause these symptoms besides a bearing?

is it possible that a bad filter bypass spring could lower oil pressure? should i plug it and see if it helps? should i use a manual oil pressure guage to verify the low pressure?

basically let me know any last ditch efforts i can try

MadMike 97 Z28

this is the lowest i could get the oil pressure to go i had the car all the way warmed up then turned the fan on high to bring the temp back to 180 and it went to about 15 but i didn't drive the car just let it idle in the garage.

ignore the rpm gauge saying 1100 it is off by 200 rpms i have verified this with a scan tool.

RUDEDOG

That looks ok. what kind of oil are you using. I would use 10w30.

MadMike 97 Z28

4quarts 10w30 castrol non synthetic and 1 quart of Lucas

MadMike 97 Z28

that is what the pressure usually is but when i drove it around the block on fri and came back it was down around 10 or 5 when idling smoothly at 900 or (1100 acording to my tach)

97SS0594

that pressure is fine. and the not idleing after a pull is a tuning issue.