Oil Pressure with cam?
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Joined: Sep 2006
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From: Houston
Oil Pressure with cam? My buddy recently purchased an lt1 camaro that was completely rebuilt with forged internals and upgraded everything. It came with a monster cam... Since it was new they ran thin crappy oil in it to help break it in fast. It had extremely low oil pressure... Like 20 at 500 rpms and would slowly go down to zero as it heated up. We flushed the motor and put heavier royal purple in it.(10w30). Anyways it seemed to help but what could be the problem for such low oil pressure. It goes up to 80 when it reved. The cam is supposed to idle at 1000 rpms but the vehicle hasnt been programmed to it. Does it just need to be dyno tuned or is there something else wrong with it. I know there is a slight leak in the oil pan. Could it be that with this leak and all the oil leaking past the rings and valves that havnt been broken in yet are causing this loss of pressure? I have an ls1 and have much more oil pressure than him. Is this just engine specific or should we worry? Oh ps, the cam and everything was installed professionaly in a shop.
Honestly just sounds like a bad oil pressure guage. Mine went crazy just like yours. If not make sure you check oil pressure with a mechanical guage by the oil filter first.
My oil pressure with a USED short block and 230/236 cam is around 40 at cold idle, over 20 hot idle.
Even if the engine has not seated the rings yet - and if it's under 500 miles, get the Royal Purple OUT if you ever want the rings to seat - you should have better oil pressure than that.
Of course, if your buddy took a freshly built engine with light breakin oil in it and went and hammered on it without a tune, he might well have destroyed the motor already.
Hint: big cams are WAY rich at idle when untuned.
Run a high detergent NON-synthetic oil for the first couple thousand miles to ensure proper break in. Believe it or not, the really cheap Walmart 10-30 store brand is good for this. First oil change after about 20 minutes. Second at 100 miles. Third at 500 miles. At 3000 miles, change to whatever oil you want to use.
Do NOT put synthetic in a motor that has yet to seat the rings!
Even if the engine has not seated the rings yet - and if it's under 500 miles, get the Royal Purple OUT if you ever want the rings to seat - you should have better oil pressure than that.
Of course, if your buddy took a freshly built engine with light breakin oil in it and went and hammered on it without a tune, he might well have destroyed the motor already.
Hint: big cams are WAY rich at idle when untuned.
Run a high detergent NON-synthetic oil for the first couple thousand miles to ensure proper break in. Believe it or not, the really cheap Walmart 10-30 store brand is good for this. First oil change after about 20 minutes. Second at 100 miles. Third at 500 miles. At 3000 miles, change to whatever oil you want to use.
Do NOT put synthetic in a motor that has yet to seat the rings!
