JS TurboTA

So I bought this car as a roller in January 2015. Dropped in an lq4 and 4l80e both stock, high mileage. It was in decent shape but never good enough to drive. I finally have motivation again but now I am getting beat by the car. After my swap I had good oil pressure, normally around 40 psi. Hardly ever drove it because I was having transmission issues. A few months down the road I noticed that my cold oil pressure was about 30 psi and by the time it got to operating temp it would drop to 0, very slowly. The oil pressure would even go down when I revved it. I also noticed slight valve train notice so I was suspecting the worst. I decided to add a mechanical gauge to verify what was happening. On first startup with the mechanical gauge I had 40 psi at the mechanical and around 60 psi on the electrical. Pretty much stayed around this even when it was warm, and now it will increase with rpm. By the time it got to operating temperature I noticed a nice sized puddle of oil under the car, but the oil pressure was oddly still about the same or maybe slightly lower. Turns out the nylon tubing running to the gauge got a small hole burned in it from the headers.

I’m now wondering if I should ignore the valve train noise and go on with getting the car on the road, or keep looking for problems? The motor is a 150k+ lq4 stock rotating assembly, ls1 accessories, and longtube headers. It’s open headers right now so I’m wondering if that is causing noise to seem worse, but I think the noise is heard mostly from around the engine bay. I also did a mostly stock bin swap with hptuners so I’m wondering if I need to get the tune cleaned up. When it’s warm it seems like the motor gets a little shakey. The noise is never consistently there but when it is it is noticeable, not loud or unbearable though.

I’m considering just doing an oil change and checking for metals. If there’s nothing I may go ahead and do a cam swap with all the supporting components (pump, chain, etc.). Any opinions on what could be going on? I was completely dumb founded after installing the mechanical gauge. Below are videos of the gauge and of the noise. Notice there is a tapping noise then almost a secondary noise in the background.

Also, the tubing for the mechanical gauge wasn’t completely full of oil because there were air pockets caught in it. Could that be effecting my reading?

Any help with what to do next before I start trying to upgrade things would be greatly appreciated! May end up pulling this thing again and having it gone through, but the slight glimmer of hope that I could save some money is very appealing.

A.R. Shale Targa

iTrader: (2)

Oil pump bypass spring could be clogged or sticking from crap oil/maintenance intervals
The O ring for the pickup tube could be dry rotted or cracked from sitting
Slight possibility also of a cam bearing spinning in its bore housing
IMO get some mufflers on it to actually try to diagnose the source/intensity of noise
At this point, tearing into the engine is free, putting it back together shoots the pocket book
Let the engine tell you what it needs instead of a bunch of keyboard specialists

JS TurboTA

I'm less concerned about the oil pressure issue now, since the mechanical gauge is reading good pressure. I'm assuming my OPSU is either faulty or bad connection. Bought it new a year ago. Main goal is to diagnose the noises. I'm going to try to get an exhaust on tonight if I can figure a way to rig the whole thing up without doing any welding. I have a TSP y pipe and stock catback so I need to find a way to merge those temporarily

soloman369

iTrader: (13)

Pull the valve cover and check the rockers for play. Sounds like lifter chatter. Lifter my not be fully pumping up . What I would do is spray b12 cleaner through the push rod oil hole right into the lifter and hope its breaks up what ever deposit are in the lifter . Iv done before with success and its very cost effective .