Mi16 Oil Pressure - Too Low

[Dino 3]

Is there a way of manually checking the oil pressure on an engine instead of relying on the dash gauge or the oe sender?

 

My pressure is on about 4bar when cold, 2.5/3 bar at normal temp and 2 (!!!!!) when really hot. This gauge has never really read high even on my std or modded 8v lumps. My old 8v 205 would shoot up to 6bar at cold and be on 4bar at running temp (obviously low on idle though as is this one)

 

I am somewhat worried about this since I have had oil surge issues recently at the Ring and at Cadwell Park (I'm finally cornering at proper speeds thats why!!)

 

I'm using Shell Helix fully synthetic and always have since installing the Mi16 lump. The latest batch of Helix is 5W40 however. Previous Helix was 10W40 IIRC. Would the 5W40 make a difference at high temps to the oil pressure?

 

Any ideas from the Gurus?

 

 

 

 

Just to add that I fitted a new sender last year due to the last one going mental and reading all over the place.

[smckeown 1]

how many miles is the bottom end on ?

 

the W rating on the oil won't effect anything once it's hot

[Dino 3]

18000miles approx

[TEKNOPUG 3]

Invest in a decent oil gauge and sender and mount it in the dash somewhere.

[Miles 331 1 Cars]

All the Dash's and sender's vary, You notice this when swaping engines from car to car,

It's a sod to check the oil pressure with a manual guage as the take off is under the Inlet manifold.

Might be worth trying a different set of guages for a experment

[ANDYGON 6]

im unsure of the gauge's that we use tbh, calibration wise, my old 1.6 showed very good pressure. however both my mi's have never been above the vertical line when cold. clearly you have more at stake than a GENUINE mi

however to answer you question, i spoke to findlay who had a aftermarket gauge and unless your a track dedicated car drilling and tapping a point is more risky than starving you engine of oil, if a seal on the gauge blows would you want oil at 3/4 bar spraying in the cabin?

 

just thrash it till it dies (when warm )

[TEKNOPUG 3]

Just get an electrical one - no oil coming anywhere near the cabin. Autometer make very good equipment and have a huge range of Oil Pressure gauges.

[Dino 3]

Might be worth trying a different set of guages for a experment

 

Good point Miles - I've got a couple spare too

 

The only reason that this turn of events worries me is because previous to these oil surge issues the gauge would consisdently read 3bar of normal/hard use when fully warm.

[ANDYGON 6]

on that point Dino i once filled my mi up to and above the max thinking it was low just because of the the gauge.

 

 

basically i doubt you do enough track time to warrent a gauge. lets face it or you going to do as much as jon or sean for instance?

 

yeah,yeah nordiiiiiii

Edited September 7, 2006 by ANDYGON

[SweetBadger 94]

Are these readings on idle or while revving it? Sounds fine if that's at idle... I'm thinking of getting an aftermarket gauge. Anyone had any experience with one of these?:

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/270-Auto-Gauge-Smoke...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

looks quite funky and is fairly cheap but I think you need some kind of adapter to attach the pressure sender as the thread is the wrong size...

[Jonmurgie 2]

Cheap and hard to see I've heard (and seen actually)... you get what you pay for and an oil pressure gauge for £13 seems far too cheap to me!

[mattmk1 0]

Whilst were on the subject of oil pressure, i went for a blast last weekend and was travelling around 70 mph when i came round a bend and saw up ahead that a set of traffic lights were on red - crap road layout ! Anyhow, i got on the brakes quite hard to come to a complete stop, but noticed that when i came to a complete stop i lost all oil pressure reading and the stop light illuminated for only the very breifest of moments. The stop light went out and the pressure gauge reclimbed to its ordinary idle position within a second.

Any ideas what caused this, as its not happened before, or since and has me stumped to be honest. Its a 1.9 8v by the way!!

 

Thanks

matt

[pugrallye 0]

oil starvation at its finest be careful!

[Dino 3]

Are these readings on idle or while revving it? Sounds fine if that's at idle...

 

No the readings are whilst using revs not at idle.

 

basically i doubt you do enough track time to warrent a gauge. lets face it or you going to do as much as jon or sean for instance?

 

I've done 5 trackdays this year and 2 days (15 laps) around the Nurburgring. Normally oil surge has never been an issue but I've got a bit faster on track this year and all of a sudden oil starvation has occured I think that I was simply not cornering hard enough in the past for it to happen

 

 

I was getting really bad oil starvation at Cadwell Park under heavy braking at the end of start/finish straight into the left/right chicane leading to the pits

 

At the Ring after Karussel on the twisties through the forest it was so bad I just gave up and cruised back for the rest of the lap.

[smckeown 1]

Seems like you are exoeriencing the same issue as most mi16 owners, luckily the petert solution is around to help resolve it

 

what do you mean so bad ? oil pressure gauge low, or stop light coming on ?

[Dino 3]

Seems like you are exoeriencing the same issue as most mi16 owners, luckily the petert solution is around to help resolve it

 

Whats the petert solution Sean?

 

Miles and Greg (XSport) agree that an oil return pipe from the back of the head to the bottom of the block is a must as well as solid lifters. This is something that is deffo on the cards in the near future as I can't be worrying about oil surge each time I'm on track. I finally feel that I'm 'getting there' with my on track ability only to be hampered by this!! Whilst at Croft a couple of months back I was having a nice battle with a well driven Mi16 only to constantly have to back off on one section where oil surge was an issue and then have to make up the lost time on the rest of the lap!

[SweetBadger 94]

Whats the petert solution Sean?

 

Miles and Greg (XSport) agree that an oil return pipe from the back of the head to the bottom of the block is a must as well as solid lifters. This is something that is deffo on the cards in the near future as I can't be worrying about oil surge each time I'm on track. I finally feel that I'm 'getting there' with my on track ability only to be hampered by this!! Whilst at Croft a couple of months back I was having a nice battle with a well driven Mi16 only to constantly have to back off on one section where oil surge was an issue and then have to make up the lost time on the rest of the lap!

 

The petert solution is fitting a XU10 sump (trapdoor baffle one) and retaining the sump spacer plate to give extra oil capacity (sump now holds 6.5l of oil) then extending the oil pump pickup so that it makes use of the extra oil. I've just got my oil pump extender from Peter and when I get hold of a spare pump will be fitting it, I'll post details when its done. Quite a cheap solution and it's supposed to be very effective - I picked up a GTi6 sump for £30 and the pickup was about £25 inc postage from Australia.

[Miles 331 1 Cars]

What sort of ground clearance do you get with the lower sump? as the engines pretty low anyway and kerb hopping (as a couple of Mi's did on the PSOOC trips) encountered smashed sumps

[SweetBadger 94]

What sort of ground clearance do you get with the lower sump? as the engines pretty low anyway and kerb hopping (as a couple of Mi's did on the PSOOC trips) encountered smashed sumps

 

It'll be whatever the standard ground clearance is minus the depth of the spacer/stiffener plate (-17 mm I think). Wouldn't have thought it'd cause a problem for cars with standard ride height but lowered ones might have issues.

[Dino 3]

what do you mean so bad ? oil pressure gauge low, or stop light coming on ?

 

Oil pressure dropping and stop light coming on.

[cybernck 402 1 Cars]

well since oil pressure gauge and warning light have seperate senders,

unless they're both faulty, you do have genuine problems and it doesn't

have anything to do with the dash itself.

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

Well the oil pressure has only dropped (stop light etc) under extreme cricumstances. What worries me more is that the gauge reads just above 2bar when hot even at mid/high revs.

 

Why would that worry you?

It's likely to be a faulty sensor or something.

 

You know, after all, the oil-pressure is only a feed pressure, and not the pressure actually acting on the big end bearing. The big end bearing is rotating, and compared to a rather standard slide-bearing these days, you would most likely get 100bar pressure from the rotating movements.

 

as long as you've got the feed pressure it's most likely to be ok.

Edited September 10, 2006 by B1ack_Mi16

[Kitsune 0]

Going back to gauges, is the pug oil pressure sender any good, or is worth completely upgrading the oil sender and dash gauge to an aftermarket item (such as the aforementioned Autometer gauges?)

Edited September 10, 2006 by Kitsune

[taylorspug 7]

No the electric Pug oil pressure sender really isnt any good at all, they all seem to give different readings, which sorta means there isnt any point in having it at all! To be fair most electronic oil pressure senders are pants, from Mazda RX7s through to stuff like Jeep Cherokees, they are bloody unreliable.

 

Best thing to do is get a mechanical gauge unit fitted or try running the engine with a master gauge to get an accurate reading.

[TEKNOPUG 3]

It's quite easy and indeed quite commob to run an inline gauge in the engine bay (and thus not worry about in being in the cabin). Obviously this won't give you data whilst driving but it can be used to ascertain how accurate your dash one is.

 

Petert solutions sounds promising and maybe a sump guard would help all the lowriders?