AM
I recently finished LS swapping my 93 Trans Am. On start up it had good oil pressure but after driving only 2 miles it lost it. Pulled the oil filter and drained through a paper towel and found nothing out of the ordinary. Spun engine over with oil filter off and nothing came out. Has new high pressure high volume oil pump, new bearings, new barbell, etc.
I know the pick up oring could be the problem but is there any chance the relief valve in the oil pump could’ve gotten stuck and causing this problem?

 

Yes of course.

 

Oil enters the filter through the outer small holes of the filter top, and exits into the engine out through the larger threaded hole in the center. 99.9% of filters have an anti-drain back valve, which is the ring you see under the small holes. The ring will stop big debris from exiting and allows the oil to drain very very slowly back out that direction. I said all of this to say that turning your oil filter upside down on a paper towel and letting it drain will never show you what’s inside the filter. 99.9% of any debris gets attached to the element anyway, and won’t release. You must open the filter casing to see what’s inside a filter. Summit sells a filter cutting tool for like $50. I have it and use it every time I change the oil on anything around here, which is once every couple weeks it seems. Takes 2 minutes.