liquid_helix136

So long story short, I have discovered through deductive reasoning that my car has lower than normal oil pressure. My reasons for thinking this are;

1. The engine has 150k miles on it
2. When in gear, if you almost stall the car where it shakes badly, the oil light will flicker on
3. When tuning my engine N/A, lowering vtec much lower than 5k results in an inconsistent vtec engagement, the warmer the oil is, the more it "lags" before it engages.

The likely culprits are either worn rod bearings or bad oil pump. I went ahead and switched to a thicker oil (was running Castrol Titanium 10w30, and switched to Mobil 1 0w-40 European Formula) which helped alleviate the symptoms listed above a bit, but they didnt go away fully.

Considering changing both the bearings and the oil pump is quite pricey, I was hoping there was a way to diagnose it with a little more certainty as to which one is causing the low pressure.

I'm gonna go ahead and pick up an Electric Oil Pressure gauge for the car first so I will know for sure where I stand exactly, but I'd like to get some feedback regardless.

Thanks!

Billman250

I am pretty sure there was a change in oil pump part numbers in late 2003. My vin last four is 2xxx so I'm pretty low.

I have a 2003 and I had the old number pump. I changed it out years ago. Hardtopguy told me about it back in 2003-2004 or so.

Rod bearings are easy to check with plastic gauge. Pull the pan, pull caps one by one and measure the clearance. .0015 is where you want to be.

I'm not sure how you would determine where the pressure loss originates without eliminating one factor.

liquid_helix136

Interesting, so I could be running an "obsolete" pump. I'll look into that. I have an 03 as well.

Glad checking the bearings is easy enough as well. Thanks Billman

boyguan

Get a gauge first. Maybe a faulty oil pressure sensor