js65cobra
10-13-2020, 04:02 PM
Hello,
So let me start by saying, I am fairly confident the answer is going to be pull the pan, check the bearings. But I wanted to outline my story and see what you guys think.
Ok, so to start, I purchased my FFR from my father about a year ago. He was the second owner of the car of which he purchased it back in 2003. In the time from 2003 to 2020 he put 1300 miles on it. (He has a bunch of other classic cars so this one did not get driven much) Hence why I purchased it from him and in that time of a year have put about a 1000 miles on it.
The engine is a 302 from a 93 mustang gt. It was bored over .030 to end up at 306ci. It has speed pro pistons and the crankshaft was turned 10-10. It has an F303 cam installed and the heads were shaved and ported when built, it also had Ford Racing valve springs and an Edelbrock air-gap performer intake installed. << That was all the info we received from the original builder of the car back in 2003.
Anyway, when I got it, I noticed the driver side cylinder head had a bolt that was sheered off. The head of the bolt was missing and could see rust marks and water marks on the firewall. So around thanksgiving last year we decided to take the head off and put all new bolts on that head. So we took off intake, headers and the head and were able to get the bolt out pretty easily (hindsight should have tried to just extract the bolt with the head on, it was that easy to remove). We got the new head gasket, and bolts put back on after doing a cleaning of the head surfaces.
Now, is where we failed. In our rush to put things back together, we borked the intake installation. When we installed it, there was a gap left on the intake on the water ports and thus when we started it up, it ended up with coolant in the oil. We shutoff the engine pretty quickly (maybe a minute), and realized that we had coolant in the oil. After some discussion we figured it must be coming from the intake, and then reinstalled it again, but this time I don't believe we gave the RTV sealant long enough to set, and thus ended up with coolant once again in the oil....So next, I figured out my problem. I was using the felpro gaskets and I should have used just RTV on the valley seal instead of those silly rubber gaskets. lesson learned. So this time, I dumped a bunch of oil down to flush out any coolant from the topside, and I also dropped the pan and cleaned out any coolant left in the pan itself. Installed the oil pan, and installed intake properly this time. And finally on startup, no oil in the coolant! This was around December last year, and thus living in Colorado, didn't have much time to run the car and see how it worked outside of just starting it in the garage. I only drove it maybe 50 miles or so, but I did notice the oil pressure gauge started at 40 psi around cold startup, but then would drop to around 10psi once warm at idle.
As an aside, around January I decided to install a holley sniper system as well, and thus spent a bunch of time tuning and getting that going. I kept noticing the oil pressure was low, but I never really remembered what it was before we did all that work, so honestly pushed it aside since the car makes 0 noises and sounds great. It runs and drives as expected and I don't hear any knocking or valve train issues.
But my concern is could I be hurting the engine, or did my oil pressure gauge just go bad? Its a smiths gauge with a poly line to the gauge. I suspected perhaps some coolant may have gotten into that gauge and caused it to not read as well as it used to... I thought about getting a new gauge (but alas here I am asking if I should).
When cruising at about 3000 RPM it shows around 20-22 psi on the gauge. If i let off the gas and let it coast while in gear, the pressure goes up (I have read this could indicate bad bearings). It never goes above 30 psi on the gauge when its warmed up.
So... my questions are:
1. What should I be expecting for oil pressure? Surely not that low at hot idle right? (sometimes even as low as 5psi on the gauge). I've seen 10 psi for every 1000 rpm, and my idle is set to 900, and i get about 9 psi at idle...
2. Are my bearings shot?
3. Should I try a heavier oil? I run 10w-30 now.
4. Should I get a new gauge and test that?
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be sure to include all the details as I have them, thanks for checking it out.
So let me start by saying, I am fairly confident the answer is going to be pull the pan, check the bearings. But I wanted to outline my story and see what you guys think.
Ok, so to start, I purchased my FFR from my father about a year ago. He was the second owner of the car of which he purchased it back in 2003. In the time from 2003 to 2020 he put 1300 miles on it. (He has a bunch of other classic cars so this one did not get driven much) Hence why I purchased it from him and in that time of a year have put about a 1000 miles on it.
The engine is a 302 from a 93 mustang gt. It was bored over .030 to end up at 306ci. It has speed pro pistons and the crankshaft was turned 10-10. It has an F303 cam installed and the heads were shaved and ported when built, it also had Ford Racing valve springs and an Edelbrock air-gap performer intake installed. << That was all the info we received from the original builder of the car back in 2003.
Anyway, when I got it, I noticed the driver side cylinder head had a bolt that was sheered off. The head of the bolt was missing and could see rust marks and water marks on the firewall. So around thanksgiving last year we decided to take the head off and put all new bolts on that head. So we took off intake, headers and the head and were able to get the bolt out pretty easily (hindsight should have tried to just extract the bolt with the head on, it was that easy to remove). We got the new head gasket, and bolts put back on after doing a cleaning of the head surfaces.
Now, is where we failed. In our rush to put things back together, we borked the intake installation. When we installed it, there was a gap left on the intake on the water ports and thus when we started it up, it ended up with coolant in the oil. We shutoff the engine pretty quickly (maybe a minute), and realized that we had coolant in the oil. After some discussion we figured it must be coming from the intake, and then reinstalled it again, but this time I don't believe we gave the RTV sealant long enough to set, and thus ended up with coolant once again in the oil....So next, I figured out my problem. I was using the felpro gaskets and I should have used just RTV on the valley seal instead of those silly rubber gaskets. lesson learned. So this time, I dumped a bunch of oil down to flush out any coolant from the topside, and I also dropped the pan and cleaned out any coolant left in the pan itself. Installed the oil pan, and installed intake properly this time. And finally on startup, no oil in the coolant! This was around December last year, and thus living in Colorado, didn't have much time to run the car and see how it worked outside of just starting it in the garage. I only drove it maybe 50 miles or so, but I did notice the oil pressure gauge started at 40 psi around cold startup, but then would drop to around 10psi once warm at idle.
As an aside, around January I decided to install a holley sniper system as well, and thus spent a bunch of time tuning and getting that going. I kept noticing the oil pressure was low, but I never really remembered what it was before we did all that work, so honestly pushed it aside since the car makes 0 noises and sounds great. It runs and drives as expected and I don't hear any knocking or valve train issues.
But my concern is could I be hurting the engine, or did my oil pressure gauge just go bad? Its a smiths gauge with a poly line to the gauge. I suspected perhaps some coolant may have gotten into that gauge and caused it to not read as well as it used to... I thought about getting a new gauge (but alas here I am asking if I should).
When cruising at about 3000 RPM it shows around 20-22 psi on the gauge. If i let off the gas and let it coast while in gear, the pressure goes up (I have read this could indicate bad bearings). It never goes above 30 psi on the gauge when its warmed up.
So... my questions are:
1. What should I be expecting for oil pressure? Surely not that low at hot idle right? (sometimes even as low as 5psi on the gauge). I've seen 10 psi for every 1000 rpm, and my idle is set to 900, and i get about 9 psi at idle...
2. Are my bearings shot?
3. Should I try a heavier oil? I run 10w-30 now.
4. Should I get a new gauge and test that?
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be sure to include all the details as I have them, thanks for checking it out.