JoeN951

Car has 53,000 miles and my mechanic thinks the oil pressure relief valve stuck and engine has only 1 bar of oil pressure. Which means I could be looking at needing to have the bottom end rebuilt, he is telling me it is noisy.

I am weighing pros and cons of having the engine rebuilt, replaced or selling it as is. Car is alpine white with burgandy interior. Car has the following "upgrades".

3 piece 16" BBS-RS wheels with new ES100's. 225f 245R
yellow Koni coil over double adj shocks front and rear
test pipe in my garage, removed so i could pass emissions
sloted rotors in front
pagid pads all around
sachs "cup" clutch
lsd
M030 sway bars front and rear
updated motor mounts

If this were your car what whould you realistically expect to get for it?

KuHL 951

If it's truly the OPRV just pull it for inspection and replace it with the 1-piece conversion model. Unless you drove it real hard at 1 bar, I wouldn't worry too much about any bearing damage. Once the OPRV is replaced you will know if damage has been done by the oil pressure and noise the car makes. I had the same issue on my 86 and haven't felt a bearing replacement is needed yet at 140K miles. I now get 5 bar at speed and 2.5-3.0+ bar at hot idle. The old 3-piece OPRV have a bad rep but often it's just an alignment problem if the seals were ever replaced on the housing.

JoeN951

Thanks 2tight, I am hoping a new valve is the answer. BTW my car has the updated valve.

KuHL 951

Sorry I missed that 87 model in your title. At 53K miles it's hard to imagine your car is in need of another valve unless it's just a bad seal at the tip of the valve. Do you know if the housing for the filter/cooler lines has ever been removed? How long was the car driven at 1-bar?

JoeN951

unfortunately i don't know how long it was driven in that state, my wife had the car on sunday so i could have our volvo wagon, she was driving the car on her way home from work on sunday, freeway and surface streets, total of about 15 miles...only the car knows and it cannot talk

Dan87951

Ouch if she kept driving it than damage was done! At worst a complete rebuild of the motor will need to be done.

RogueM3

I am very interested to see what you guys think a good value for a car is that needs major motor work..as this one does...or atleast some motor work.

Thanks..

Richard

KuHL 951

Without knowing more about the nature of the problem I would think you are at a disadvantage on price. Your other mods and options are good and mileage is very low. With what limited info you now have I would think $3500 to $4K would be a good starting point. If the damage isn't too serious and can be professionally confirmed I feel the price would climb from there. Personally I would determine what the problem is a little better first before setting a price; if not us Vultures here that work on their own cars will start circling this one real fast!

JDeitz951

Is 1 bar the OP at idle or what? Does it go up with RPMs? I believe either the owners manual or the factory service manual specifies that the minimum acceptable oil pressure is 1 bar at idle. If the car was driven lightly with no less than 1 bar. you probably have no damage from this. But you do have a problem - why is it so low? The OPRV prevents "too high" OP. I don't see how it could cause low OP. You may need new rod bearings. Not hard but labor intensive.

Ski

I've seen "engine damage unkown" cars go from a range of 2500-4000 that have poor paint and interiors - depends on options too. Our track car was fair paint, good interior, but the engine was leaking like no tomorrow, $3000. I've seen a few with excellent interior, excellent paint, with head gasket or #2 rod issues go for $3500-6000...just a few that I've seen.

DDP

I bought a 951 with a spun rod bearing on it for 4k. But, it had a larger turbo, had a huntely head on it, racing clutch, maf, injectors, chips, EBC, suspension and such.

Ski

aren't you rebuilding the turbo now...?

DDP

Yes sir.

KuHL 951

I'm no expert but my sticking 3-piece OPRV on the 951 caused no OP build-up at start-up until it would unstick(15-20 seconds), a change out solved the problem so far. I've known folks (Brad-Cam) who have driven home 200 miles after a run with a toasted #2 (sounded like a lifter) and dropping oil pressure with nothing more than a bearing swap to fix it. Then again there are those that have had #2 fail at high load and had to call AAA. If your wife was careful with the car on the 15 mile drive, I wouldn't give up quite yet unless you are totally fed up with the car.

JDeitz951

[QUOTE=2Tight]I'm no expert but my sticking 3-piece OPRV on the 951 caused no OP build-up at start-up until it would unstick(15-20 seconds), a change out solved the problem so far.

I can understand if you got zero pressure, then that would be a 100% blocked OPRV. This guy gets 1 bar. I can't see how the OPRV would do that. But that could be cuz I'm dumb. I can accept that.