Is too much oil pressure a bad thing?
01-18-2004, 10:49 AM
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Is too much oil pressure a bad thing? My car is up to 89K miles now, and it still has the stock oil pump in it. It seems like the more miles the car gets on it, the higher the oil pressure gets. At cruising speeds, with rpm's around 1800-2000, the pressure is around 60 psi, and at WOT, it's nothing for me to see 75 psi! Is this something I should be concerned with? The car has always had high oil pressure though, ever since I bought it brand new back in Aug. of 00'. I run Valvoline 10w-30 synthetic, and change it every 3-3500 miles. Are the oil pressure gauges slightly off also, like some other cars have had temp gauges be off?
01-18-2004, 11:12 AM
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These are common pressures for an LS1 motor. I myself and many other see the same things with our cars.
Answering your subject line : Yes,Too much oil pressure can be bad.
I personally do not think your pressures are out of line.
Answering your subject line : Yes,Too much oil pressure can be bad.
I personally do not think your pressures are out of line.
01-18-2004, 09:50 PM
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If you are concerned then make a log of oil pressure at operating temp and you will probably see that you are really concerned about nothing...
As to the answer to "is too much oil pressure a bad thing?" Yes. Many after market companies offer "high pressure" oil pumps. If there is not a corresponding increase in volume then you are pissing in the wind. The reason why is that if you have too much pressure then you can literally blow the oil off the bearings. A good illustration would be go outside and grab a water hose and turn the water on. Then find a big rock. Place the flow of water on the rock and you see it gets wet. Then add a high pressure nozzle and spray the same rock. It will no longer coat the rock with water but will be repelled off the rock. Ideally you would want a moderate pressure and a high volume. Just FYI saw a Nascar truck on the dyno and it only had 15 lb. of pressure, so that goes to show you pressure is not the key.
Later,
Bart
As to the answer to "is too much oil pressure a bad thing?" Yes. Many after market companies offer "high pressure" oil pumps. If there is not a corresponding increase in volume then you are pissing in the wind. The reason why is that if you have too much pressure then you can literally blow the oil off the bearings. A good illustration would be go outside and grab a water hose and turn the water on. Then find a big rock. Place the flow of water on the rock and you see it gets wet. Then add a high pressure nozzle and spray the same rock. It will no longer coat the rock with water but will be repelled off the rock. Ideally you would want a moderate pressure and a high volume. Just FYI saw a Nascar truck on the dyno and it only had 15 lb. of pressure, so that goes to show you pressure is not the key.
Later,
Bart
01-19-2004, 09:55 AM
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General rule of thumb IMO with oil pressure is 10psi for every 1000rpm, so if you aren't seeing atleast 65psi you'd better not be spinning past 6000rpm.
But my '01 runs the same as yours and I got a noticable difference in going to a K&N oil filter vs a Mobil One.
But my '01 runs the same as yours and I got a noticable difference in going to a K&N oil filter vs a Mobil One.
