bbc oil pressure

[Wolfplace]

Valve seal springs? And if I'm not mistaken, doesn't the dart big m require several different sized cam bearings? Did you get the right set for it?

They are the same

Another thing to check
There are two oil plugs up in the valley right in front just below the intake manifold.
If you aren't used to Dart blocks they can be easily missed if someone isn't paying attention,,

[Alan Roehrich]

Get rid of that short oil filter, especially if you have the oil filter bypass plugged. If necessary, get a high quality remote mount for the oil filter, and get one that uses a Chevrolet filter, and not a Ford. Then switch to the Wix Racing oil filters. The smallest filter you want on a high performance big block Chevy is a Wix 51060R.

alan,
Anytime I tried or had to use a remote filter the oil pressure always dropped due to the fittings and line coming and going.
Don't think the OP wants any less.

I don't recall having that problem. In fact, when swapping from a small restrictive filter to a large high flow race filter, I've seen an increase in pressure. It also often solves oil temperature problems as well as wear problems on the distributor gear and camshaft gear.

[prairiehotrodder]

I bought a mobil 1 high performance filter, its the best i could find. I'm still looking for some good oil. It would be nice if the bigger filter found me some oil pressure but i'm not expecting much. Oil pressure has been fine before with the small filter. The mobil 1 is supposed to withstand 9X greater oil pressure so it should work with a blocked off pressure relief. Got a moroso filter adapter coming. I took the car for a blast today. Runs awesome but oil pressure is still lower than i would like on my original gage. I'll do the oil and filter change tomorrow and hope for the best.

[BlackoutSteve]

The mobil 1 is supposed to withstand 9X greater oil pressure so it should work with a blocked off pressure relief.

The pressure bypass valve in the oil pump's cover will never let the oil pressure get to silly levels, even though oil filters are rated at quite a lot more psi than the engine will ever see.
The filter bypass valve in the block (or block adapter) is only rated at ~10psi and opens only if the pressure differential between pre-filtered and post-filtered oil becomes greater in order to protect the engine, albiet with unfiltered oil.
This could be due to a clogged filter, a heavy weight oil, cold oil or a combination. Unfortunately, the filter bypass valve opens a lot and I believe is guaranteed to stay wide open for extended periods when the oil is cold. Blocking it is safe on a well maintained engine and most/all hi performance block adapters like System1 for example, have no filter bypass valves in them.

Where is the best place to tap the pressure gauge for the best accurate reading ?

Not done for accuracy, but on a Mark4, I measure my oil pressure as far from the oil pump as possible along the main gallery. I want to see main's pressure worst-case scenario, knowing that for the rest of the mains, the pressure is better.
Don't tap into the lifter gallery, like above the timing cover on a Gen5/6. With the mains at ~65, you'll be lucky to see more than 40 as much of the oil has been supplied and pressure bled off by that point..

[Steve Haaf]

Those filter adapters that don`t have a built in bypass use a filter that has a built in bypass in them. You can pick and choose which oil filters that you want to use because different filters have different bypass opening pressures and different flow ratings. There`s quite a range of filters to pick from out there so you can tailor your oil system by what filter you choose. You just have to do your homework and look them up.

[racear2865]

If you check oil pressure befoer the oil filter, then a restrictive filter should show more oil pressure. If you check after the filter it will be less or at least fluid dynamics says it should, but hell Im gittin old. So check before and after to see the drop. Just takes two gages. I have 1 Dart--540 in here building now and a PBM. do you need me to look at any thing here
reed

[prairiehotrodder]

Got the moroso oil filter adapter on, pan is full of royal purple 20W50, got a fancy mobil 1 oil filter on. Cold start oil pressure looks a couple psi higher. We'll see what it does hot. Going to the races tomorrow. I'll post the results.
Brian

[prairiehotrodder]

As noted in another post, i took the engine all apart to do a few things (planning to do a cam swap) Didn't end up doing the cam swap but i did find a broken rocker arm. It was a comp gold rocker that was broken right through the center of the steel fulcrum. It was still working and didn't show up on a compression test. After putting my engine all back together and replacing the broken rocker arm, the oil pressure is good again. It seems like a stretch but i'm gonna go ahead and blame that rocker arm for the low oil pressure. Thats the only problem i found and now its fixed.
Brian

[Kevin Johnson]

Your engine is achieving sentience and it deliberately altered the oil pressure so that you would find the cracked rocker arm. They grow up so fast: you need to treasure these moments.

[prairiehotrodder]

Yes thankyou, you have earned your GURU status with that post.