trendy996

Two days ago I was spirited driving one night then parked her in the garage. She sat for a day. When I went to start her up to play some golf today she spewed out some smoke and burnt it off for a few minutes. I know that's a characteristic of these cars so I thought nothing of it. What I did noticed is that as I was driving to my club she was stalling out when I'd press the clutch in coming to a stop. After starting her back up and driving I noticed my oil light would come one while idling stationary and the pressure guage almost reading zero. Then when I would drive off the oil light shuts off but, the pressure wouldn't go over 1 bar. I didn't notice most of this till I was close to the course. So when I was done golfing and started her back up and drove off the oil pressure was acting normal. Then as she warmed up the pressure decreased and decreased untill it stayed at 1 bar again.
Also the digital oil indicator showed 3 blocks unlight out of 8 bars, I think.

Maybe an oil pressure sending unit?

Macster

Provided I read your post correctly, any time an engine exhibits anomalous behavior concurrent with in this case oil pressure gage readings of low oil pressure that's generally a sign there's a real low oil pressure situation.

If I'm right -- and I hope I'm wrong and there's some other less scary explanation for what you observed -- you should have shut off the engine as soon as it was safe to do so and had the car flat bedded to a shop for diagnosis.

IAC, you should avoid running the engine at all and get the car to a qualified shop for immediate diagnosis and repair.

While there may be a relative non-scary explanation for what you observed going on with your car and its engine the risk is if you proceed under this belief you could do harm to the engine that might otherwise be ok.

Sincerely,

Macster.

trendy996

I do understand that. Any idea on why it would have good oil pressures when cold versus when it gets warm the pressure falls to one bar?

San Rensho

Yes, cold oil has higher viscosity which will generate higher oil pressure. As the oil warms, it thins and the oil pressure falls. Like Macster said, don't mess with low oil pressure. You had a warning light and confirmation of low oil pressure with the guage. Don't even start the car. It could be something as simple as a sender or the oil pressure relief valve, but you have to test the oil pressure with an external guage at minimum.

fasteddie99

LN Engineering isn't too far from you...

Macster

Well, assuming the oil pressure differences are not real a defective oil pressure sensor/sender has to be suspect.

The above assumes the engine's behavior was not due to low oil pressure but from some other reason, which might be the case since after some thought had the oil pressure been truly that low you'd have a very very sick engine on your hands by now.

If the oil pressure differences are real, a second possibility is there's some kind of an internal oil leak that gets real bad as the engine heats up and the oil leaks from the high pressure side to the low pressure side with a subsequent drop in the oil pressure.

Be aware that while I'm full of WAGs even if I'm right unless you are prepared to get your hands dirty and know what you are doing your best bet is to flat bed the car to a professional technician and have the cause of the behavior diagnosed and addressed.

I do not like to mess with/play around with an engine that may be experiencing true low oil pressure. The engine can go from ok to toast in no time if one isn't careful or experienced in this area.

Sincerely,

Macster.

targa996

I had bad oil pressure sender and the guague would either get stuck at 5, work normally or ocassionally drop to zero with red light on for a few seconds and then bounce back up to 5. But I never had smoke or changes in idle. At cold idle my pressure reads 3 and at hot just under 2 ... but 1 or below means something wrong. Do you see oil leak under engine or around sender area on top? Any oil in coolant? If you pull dip stick what does oil look like? Next step would be to pull filter and look for debris ( keep oil sample for analysis) if that all looks clean I would still not start engine. Flatbed to good indie, explain symptoms and have them check. If you are lucky it is $200 sender job, if you are still lucky it is $1k aos job or even $1.5k ims bearing. But you don't want to start engine at this point and do $20k of damage ....

trendy996

I'm going to copy and paste what I had posted for what I have done to the car so there isn't any what ifs.

My friend and I have been building the car since I recieved it. I purchased the car last Octoberish from Ross. As I was driving it home (knowing and not caring of the intermix) from Newark, NJ the head gave way in Pittsburg, PA blowing the mix all over the road from the coolant overflow. I didn't want to believe that the head was cracked so I tried some other possible fixes. This included the coolant tank with updated cap, AOS, and the oil cooler. After that didn't fix we tore the engine down to the case. Cleaned it completely out and found the 4-6 head majorly cracked.
I then purchased a good used head and added ARP headstuds. I also replaced all the coolant hoses, water pump, low tstat, LN chromoly oil gear shaft, spark plug tubes, spark plugs with densos, screw on oil filter, and all other major gaskets. Filled her with fluids and started right up. After a few moments it developed a misfire so I took it to Wright Motorsports for a coolant flush and to see what the issue was. It turned out that the cam adjuster was stuck open so while I was there I had them flash it with te GIAC tune. To be honest I'm not sure if they flashed it bc I could never tell a difference. She still runs a little hotter than I'd like. So while I was fixing the car I did forget to mention how bad my bite was from the mod bug....lol

Here is a list of upgrades that we installed:

Engine:
Custom intake
ARP headstuds
low temp t-stat
LN Engineering chromoly oil shaft
LN Engineering screw on oil filter
Knock off headers
Muller bypass
GIAC tune
3rd radiator kit with two 8" spal fans
semi solid engine mounts

Drivetrain:
AASCO LWFW
Sachs sport clutch
semi solid trans mount
short shift kit
GBox

Suspension:
V3 coilovers
solid subframe mounts
Tarret front and rear sway endlinks
rear lower control arms with adj thrust bushings and mono ball bearings
front strut tower bar
rear roll cage
Kineses 18x9 18x11
Nitto Nt5 235/40 265/35
stainless steel brake lines
hawk performance brake pads



Exterior:
gt3 front bumper
Gambella hood
fiberglass doors
LED headlights
LED taillights
LED third brake light
smoked turn signals

Interior:
replica gt3 seats
double din stereo
diamond audio speakers
3 spoke steeringn wheel with new airbag cover

Sneaky Pete

I have to ask.......what weight oil are you using?

trendy996

T6 5w40

Sneaky Pete

I use the same. I asked because a few years ago I had my car at a DE and had 5-30 in my car. After a few sessions the oil pressure was noticeably lower than usual. Upon start up for an afternoon run the car spewed white smoke for about 10 seconds than cleared but the pressure was still low. Went to a thicker oil and never had the problem again. THIS IS NOT AN OIL THREAD.

And you don't have a CEL?

fpb111

"...As I was driving it home (knowing and not caring of the intermix) from Newark, NJ the head gave way in Pittsburg, PA blowing the mix all over the road from the coolant overflow..."


Running the car with oil/water mix can ruin main & rod bearings very quickly. Sounds like yours may be badly worn from lack of lubrication.

trendy996

There wasn't coolant in the oil. Just oil in the coolant. Only reason I decided to drive it back. I'm going to try the sensors. I'll report back after.

I'll check to see if any codes come up.

VGM911

Four mentions about golf in just one posting, so I'm guessing that you want us to know that you're a golfer. <g>

Macster

If oil is in the coolant any CEL and error codes is probably like looking up what the next day's menu is as the Titanic slips below the waves.

Given the additional info, I think it is safe to say there's an oil leak between the high pressure oil system and the cooling system.

It wouldn't surprise me if you found coolant in the oil, too, although at this point there may not be enough to see as water. But an oil analysis would turn up the presence of anti-freeze compounds in the oil.

My WAG is at best there's a compromise of a head gasket but of course there could be a crack in the head.

The oil pressure issue could arise from a poorly done camshaft cover to head sealant job.

(But a cracked head could explain this too.)

This sealant provides among other things the seal that keeps the high pressure oil that is routed to the camshaft bearings in the cover from leaking out.

While this is an internal leak oil pressure and delivery suffers all the same.

In some cases one or more lifters can be starved for oil or the oil starvation could extend to the VarioCam system even one of the camchain tensioners.

Of course any of the above would have an effect on the engine.

Unless you can diagnosis precisely what is going on by some other method I think the engine needs to come out and at least have its camshaft covers removed and well, what you find determines what you do next.

Sincerely,

Macster.