shuttlefever

Works for me.

Ok, so this forum is amazing, I would gladly donate. So what amount is fair to give so I can post my car in "for sale"??

Cool, thanks. I will check into that.

I hate to post this here, but I am not as ure where else to go. I would like to put my car for sale up on the forums here. When I go to that forum it says I can not post there. Any idea why? I did a search but always end up with ads for an answer. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, D~

Ok so I dropped the pan yesterday. I am still pretty baffled about what's going on in there. I saw that the pickup is compressed around the tube. (maybe I should call it pressed against the round flat plate and the intake tube) It was not smashed or terribly disfigured. I was able to carefully use a pick and pull it back out to a nice dome shape. I also noticed that the paint on the inside of the pan is flaking and coming loose. The paint problem may possibly be part of the issue. I am not convinced of anything for certain. As far as eliminating the filter by-pass valve goes, as I understand it, that valve is merely for when a filter gets plugged up. Our filters on these cars do not have internal bypass in case of plugging. I have not cut the previous filter apart, but plan to soon. Something I am considering is that the schmutz flowing through the oiling system from the flaking paint in the pan may be causing things like the relief valve in the pump to stick open. I plan to try and clean things up as much as possible. I am going to pull the valve cover off just to see if there is paint sticking in the top of the engine. Any thoughts would be appreciated!! This one is quite a stumper.

Would certainly be easier to leave the car together... Thanks for the advise Tony. I was thinking about taking my borescope home and trying to get a peek but i think if its not that hard to get the pan out i will just go that route. Besides i have an older scope so its fairly large. I doubt it would get anywhere close enough to the pickup to see the screen.

Its a mechanical autometer guage. As far as I know its fairly accurate. But to be honest i just wanted to see pressure, the amount wasn't as important as just the presence of it. D~

NewZed, it was really chilly yesterday, but I won't rule anything out yet!!

Well, its doing the same as before. Can shut the engine off and immediately re start it and pressure is normal. I am theorizing here, maybe the oil pickup is too close to the pan or has something blocking the screen or has gunk in the screen. Just not really sure what to think as of yet. My best friend is as big of a motor head as I am and we are both pretty perplexed. I really don't have a problem pulling the engine out. I am going to start stripping the nose back off this week. Since i just spent the last year and a half doing body work, i would like to protect it!!

Ok. Second autocross in the z car behind me. Had tons of fun! Managed to finish around the middle of the pack. But... Grrr... Still dropping pressure. Same situation. I am going to see if i can drop the oil pan reasonably easily without pulling the engine. It won't hurt my feelings if i have to yank it out since i won't be racing again til at least July and i can finally paint the engine bay. I will keep posting on this thread if it yields something obvious.

I don't usually anyway. And I am running synthetic. That seems to flow a little nicer. D~

Ok I think I have It cured... I took off the oil filter and yanked that pesky little filter pressure relief valve. I don't intend to go more than 1500 to 2000 miles between oil/filter changes so it seemed like the next logical step in finding the whacky oil pressure issue. I was able to use the housing for the spring that slides into the block and made an insert that pushes very tightly into that sleeve. Then I pushed the whole plugged up sleeve into place. It is a good snug fit that I feel confident will stay in place. I spun on a nice new Bosch filter and started it up. Then topped oil off and took it for a test flog. It worked! It spins up to 6500 with no sign of the oil pressure going anywhere!! I feel better now... Autocross sunday!!! Most likely in the rain, but that can be a lot of fun too!! D~

The factory gauge in most cars of the 70s and early 80s were sketchy at best. I swapped over to a mechanical. I am going to look for one that looks right in the dash after i iron out the oiling issue.

Has anyone fabbed up any bumper mounts to get rid of the front"shock" type low speed crash bumper brackets? Would love to see pictures! I hacked a lot out of my steel hood by removing most of the inner structure. Hole sawed on the remaining bit of structure as well. Went crazy with the hole saw on the front bumper too. Next time the hood is off i will weigh it. D~

Bummer... So, UPDATE!! the weirdness continues. I decided sold some parts and decided that I would go ahead and change the oil pump just because it seemed like a sound thing to do. I opted to stay with the stock volume pump and purchased a new Melling pump. Got the pump stuffed in there, and drove the car. Very happy with the pressure gain the new pump has yielded. However there is still an issue. I can rev the engine all the way up to 5800 rpms and the pressure rises in a nice linear manner. But if i go to 6000 the pressure drops right off and settles at 20. Just like before, only now it at least has better pressure once it stops it's dive. It doesn't matter what gear I am in (first or second). I can immediately shut the engine off and re start it and pressure is normal. The shut off and re start take place over a period of maybe 6 seconds (while coasting). I am still pretty convinced its not starving for oil, but I am fairly stumped on this thing. I shimmed the relief spring just for the heck of it and it does the same. Could there be an issue with the relief valve behind the filter? Any ideas??? Dennis~

That pan is DEAD sexy!!! would it work on an s130 car?? It doesn't show it being usable for a zx but it is pretty much the same motor, is there any difference in suspension that would make this pan not work on my 79?

Newzed, its both time and third gear is being a little cranky. I found some redline locally. Picking it up after work today. Thanks for the info!! As usual the HybridZ forums come through! Dennis~

Any opinions on Mobile 1 or Royal Purple?

My 79 n/a 2+2 5speed car needs a trans fluid change. Any recommendations for some slick stuff in an old trans?? Royal purple?? Synthetics good or not so much?? Always getting great info on here. Thanks in advance for the help!! Dennis~

Well thanks but I am not totally convinced until I run my next autocross. Stay tuned for further reports of impending autocross doom!!! D~ P.S. I am still thinking about a partitioned pan because there may be track days in my future!!!

Ok so first of all, Tony, i put a mechanical guage on it a long time ago, before the test drive that made me believe it was a sticky relief valve. Today I yanked the pump and took it apart to inspect it. The pump itself is fine, a little scarred up but not any worse than I would expect from an older engine. I took the relief valve apart next, and no surprise, it had a sticky point at the open position. I took it apart and polished the bore and piston, and the corners of the ridges. After monkeying with that for a little while I re assembled the pump with a washer behind the spring on the relief valve to bump the relief point. I re-installed the pump on the car and drove it. I flogged around a quarter tank of fuel through it and have not been able to get the pressure to repeat the problem. I won't brag and say I cured the issue but for now I am satisfied with the results. I ran it up over 6 grand several times, in turns and on straights. The pressure never went below 55 psi at high revs. At it's lowest it was around 12 or so at idle. Next autocross is on the 14th. That will be the true test! D~

Just want to apologize for my multiple posts. My "smart"phone is dumb!!!!

I fear there may be a bit of over thinking here. The engine oil pressure kept falling even after the engine went back to idle. In my experience with drag cars, even if the pickup sucks air, your gonna get pressure back when oil gets back to the pan. This just kept falling off slowly. I think if it pulled air it would have lost pressure more rapidly. And if oil was caught somewhere in the engine, an immediate re-start shouldn't have shown normal pressure right away. But maybe i am not thinking hard enough about it...

I fear there may be a bit of over thinking here. The engine oil pressure kept falling even after the engine went back to idle. In my experience with drag cars, even if the pickup sucks air, your gonna get pressure back when oil gets back to the pan. This just kept falling off slowly. I think if it pulled air it would have lost pressure more rapidly. And if oil was caught somewhere in the engine, an immediate re-start shouldn't have shown normal pressure right away. But maybe i am not thinking hard enough about it...

I appreciate the engineering stuff but I fear you mis-read the test drive results. I restarted the engine immediately after shutting it off. No cool down time. The engine temp was fairly low as well. I am still pretty convinced its a sticking relief. Plus it gives me an excuse to grab a hi volume pump. If the problem persists after changing the pump, I will see about modifying my pan to incorporate some partitioning in an attempt to get the oil back to the pickup better. My first fear is that the oil is not returning rapidly enough or being kept away from the pickup by centrifugal force in the turns. But after the test flog I am fairly convinced i am having another issue. I may pull the pump this weekend and see if i can see any issues with it. And to answer the viscosity question, I am using 10w40 Mobil 1.