sunday night when comming home from the G12 show in ATL, me and some buddies raced. i raced twice, and a few minutes after the last race we pulled over to refuel. when my car came to a stop, i heard a LOUD ticking noise comming from the motor, and looked down and saw i had about 10 psi of oil pressure...immediately shut the car off. we scanned it and saw nothing out of ordinary, so i fired it back up and it idling at about 3k rpms for a few seconds and then dropped back down. the oil pressure SLOWly climbed to about 25 psi, and as it climbed, the tick slowly went away. i drove it home at a steady 25 psi of oil pressure, stopped and checked the oil (which was a quart low) and added a quart. after the oil was added, the oil pressure rose another 10 pounds to 35 psi.

it was clearly comming from the driver side, top end. possible a rocker arm or lifter. oil pump going bad? low oil cause the top end to get too dry and start ticking? post up if youve had this problem or have any ideas, ive gotta drive the car 4 hours saturday and im kinda nervous!

 

dude im guessing it can be the oil pump goin out! or the pick up tube seal or something busted! since i see u have a cam is it still the stock pump??

 

yes, still the stock pump. what gets me is that when i added the quart of oil to get the crankcase full again, then oil pressure increased to ALMOST normal psi. i dont have any leaks or anything like that tho, the low oil lelve was just the normal quart that these cars will burn between oil changes.

 

your car burns 1 quart of oil??? wow u need a catch can dude. anyways, i would start off by something simple like draining the oil, looking for any residue of seals or something in the oil or something the magnet on the drain plug has cought, but im guessing the pump is giving away, you should have got a new one with the cam swap since the motor is doing much more with the same stock pump. if you must, u can use a thicker oil to increase oil pressure

 

yea i was gonna run maxlife in it this time, i change a lot of oil and that seems to swell the seals up the best. but many LS1s from what i read burn a half to full quart between changes.

 

ever since i got my catch can and have performed a special pcv mod with 2 fuel filters and relocated pcv valve, my oil color stays clear for about 2,000 miles (b4 it was like 1,000) and i only add veryy veryyy little oil to almost no oil! i also use Mobil 1 5w-30 and now i have 86,000 miles! how many miles does ur motor have? watch the oil pressure and make sure it does not drop low, and since u hear a ticking noise the pump is the heart of the oiling system, so thats where the problem will begin,

 

my motor has 3k on it, the ticking noise is completely gone now. somehow the topend was starved for a few seconds and thats why it was ticking, when the pressure rose, the ticking went away. just trying to figure out why it dropped like that. but ill change the oil first for sure and then move to the pump if it doesnt get better.

 

oil changed, went with maxlife 10w30...no more problems so far and normal oil pressure

 

What is the oil pressure sitting at now... cruising and at hot idle??

 

idle around 35-40 psi......crusising around 50-55 psi. a little higher than normal, but its better than it being low.