Hey guys lately my corvettes oil pressure as been getting pretty low. It will go as high as 550kpa and gets to as low as 10 kpa in idle and accelerating. It has been happening more and more and am wondering if this is normal, the danger light comes on when it gets below 20kpa I think. The car seems to be running fine I am just thinking what to do before I store it for the harsh canadian winter. Thanks

 

Maybe go to a heavier weight, drive it a bit and then park it for the winter.

 

The 550 kpa sounds great but the 10kpa is only about 1.5 PSI. That will kill your engine....no question about it. You'd probably want to take a mechanical gauge and verify that pressure because it's not even enough to keep your lifters pumped up and it should be making a lot of noise.

Personally, I wouldn't risk driving it at all until I knew the actual pressure. Catastrophic engine damage will result at 1 or 2 psi of oil pressure. It could be something as simple as a sending unit......hopefully.

If it around 500-550 when it's cold and drops down to 10 when it's hot you could have some bearing problems. I'd sure want to know that.

 

I wouldn't drive it. LT1s are expensive (guess how I know). Could be the oil pump failing, get it checked out!

 

Sorry about the lack of information but it's a l98 and it will only go down to 10 kpa for a split second than shoot back up high. Can this mean anything different? If I manually read that the oil pressure is low what should my steps be in fixing this problem? Check oil levels? Change oil filter? Thanks for all the info!

 

When you have low oil pressure, the first thing you check is the
oil level.

I've a suspicion it will turn out to be the sender or wiring. Oil pressure
doesn't go briefly low and come back up. But don't drive it until you
KNOW.

 

Hopefully when it goes down to 1.5 PSI it's just a wiring or sending unit problem. Even s short loss of pressure (1.5psi) can destroy your engine. Have you checked your oil level or changed your pump or anything recently?

 

I shouldn't have assumed, but it doesn't really matter. It does sound like probably a wiring or ground problem, but I wouldn't drive it until you find out for sure.

 

If your oil pressure was actually dropping to 1.5 psi your engine would be telling you very loudly. A check with mechanical gauge would be a good idea . If that is not possible I would swap out the sender. Before I get tared and feathered for "chunking parts" wiring could be the fault but I suggest the sender is more prone to failure.

 

Knowing and loving the C4 wiring harness as I do, I can almost gaurentee you that its a sender or wire problem.
Default for a d/c connector is 80psi...max possible display. When there are loose or dirty connections it sends various signals that are purely based on resistance, which is what dirty connections amount to. The sender is a resistor that varies with pressure....
Often these wire harnesses will have issues right behind the OP sender where there are about 5 or 6 wire splices into the main harness trunk line. This is also where the mystery grounds originate that people are told to find and clean near the oil filter...so there is a LOT going on within 4" of harness trunk line. It gets wet, it rots, wires break & corrode...and one day you have a fraction of the oil pressure you had yesterday...Somedays you have 80 at idle and it goes DOWN as you speed up...strange.

First, pull the wire cap off and wire brush the end and sender tab. Carefully replace it...that tab is real easy to break off BTW. Next, see what OP is at key ON engine NOT running. If it is above zero that confirms a electrical signal issue and not a mechanical issue. Thats good news.

If none of the wiggling and cleaning helps,. then go find a mechanical sender and check the pressure.

Now, this might be a good time to consider a mod that I just did to mine...I relocated my sender to mount near the brake booster so that I could service it and test the OP whenever I desired without a bunch of gyrations trying to get to the mount on back of the cyl head. This is VERY convenient and I'm still pat'n myself on the back for that one...think about it.

If by chance a mechanical gauge indicates that there really IS low pressure...its still not lost. The filter has a bypass valve that CAN stick open and dump off most of the oil pressure before it even gets to the filter...so very little makes it to lifters and heads. IF that were the case, as others have said your engine would be rattling like a nickle in a beer can....for a while. Short while..

 

Thank you guys so much! It sounds like a wiring problem! You guys sure know you cars I just started university so I have some exams right now but once my schedule free's up I will be sure to check the wiring!