Oil Pressure

[NISMO]

I know oil pressure has been discussed over and over again, but something weird happened on the way home yesterday.

My oil pressure has never had any problems since I've had the car. I've installed the largest GREX cooler and with decent length lines there was no pressure drop whatsoever.

The guage usually shows 2 bar on idle and increases no drama's above 4 when accellarting.

Yesterday though in traffic, I pulled up to a set of lights and it dropped to 0. No warning light though. I took off on the green light and it raised to around 1bar and slowly got to 2. At the next lights it dropped to 1 bar at idle. Got upt to 2bar on driving. On the following lights it again dropped to 0 like the first time.

That was then it. The next half hour was as per normal, 2 bar on idle and increasing on accellaration.

Got home, left the car alone for an hour or so, started it up and no drama's. Above 2 bar on idle.

My thoughts are

1. There's something in the sump blocking pick up

2. Faulty guage/sender - only the factory one

3. Could it be the heat? I was driving for about an hour in traffic stop start an dthe oil temp was around 85degrees. Not high i know but just thinking if the heat in the engine bay somehow messed with sender to the guage. (clutching at straws)

If i take it for another drive and all is ok, should i continue until it happens again? I 'm thinking to drop all the oil and see if there's anyhting in the pan.

Could the oil pump cause any of this? It's a 92 car but with very low genuine k's and all other parts of the car show condition in line with the low k's. Should i be worrying about the pump?

Cheers

Bobby

[NISMO]

Forgot to add, oil is topped up and over "H" and no leaks or anything found.

Oil is about 200k's old.

[rossco_01]

myn has done this from time to time as well i have asked my mechanic about it and he said its normal the gauge is normally the item that is lying to you if the car was running normal i.e no knocking engine temp was normal and so forth then its the gauge

[NISMO]

I'm kinda hoping that's the case.

I've asked the fat red dude, for a set of guages for Xmas including oil temp, pressure and water temp. Which I'll hopefully install in the next week or so. I might drop the oil to be safe but there goes another $150 if i do that. Still better than a rebuild i suppose.

[bubba]

Oil will thin out as it heats up but for the stock gauge to start reading 0.. probably porkies..

Get a real oil pressure gauge and then see what it does. Sometimes my stock gauge works mint, others (especially when hot) it's crap.

[tridentt150v]

Dropping the oil won't do anything except waste $$$$. Iwould spend the $100 on a new sensor/sender. If your gauge still reads funny, do what bubba says and get a decent gauge and check what it does.

[PM-R33]

Mine did this about a year ago one night about 3 times and i freaked out, starting checking everything and couldn't find anything wrong. Hasn't done it since.

I wouldn't worry about it man, it'll just be the gauge acting up a bit.

[NISMO]

Thanks guys,

I'm starting to relax a little again :-)

I'll definitely be doing the a/market guages and hopefully won't see the prob again.

[STATUS]

has the oil cooler been on for long? i have had a few (two one s15 and the other a s14) customers come to me with similar issues and it only happens when the oil gets real hot.... it turned out they had installed the oil cooler lines up wrong and when the thermostat opened it lost oil pressure.

BUT most of the time the Rb's get dodgy sender syndrome.

Edited December 23, 2008 by URAS

[NISMO]

has the oil cooler been on for long? i have had a few (two one s15 and the other a s14) customers come to me with similar issues and it only happens when the oil gets real hot.... it turned out they had installed the oil cooler lines up wrong and when the thermostat opened it lost oil pressure.

BUT most of the time the Rb's get dodgy sender syndrome.

Hey Trent,

Yeah it's been on for a while, including a spirited 200k drive up the infamous "Putty Rd" here in NSW and also during tuning on the dyno for a day, both with no probs at all.

Fingers crossed everyone is right and its the sender.

[skyguy61]

Hey Bobby,

Mine does the exact same thing in a GTST R33, i freaked out the first time it did it!! But had heard that it does happen, but i still listen to the engine and watch the temp. gauge just to be sure thou. It must be a Skyline thing?

[djr81]

The sender unit on the Nissans is well known to be a dodgy item. I used to have the same problem on an old GT-R I had & replaced the unit. The problem then went away.