Hi Guys, I know this is a stupid question but I am sure it won't be my last....last night my oil pressure shot up to 80psi when I was just cruisin to the gym...is that normal? I mean, I didn't exactly step on it or anything...I do warm the baby up. Changed the oil about 200 miles ago. Should I be concerned? It sounds okay, drives okay...heck I'm just an ignorant female w/a Z06. Thanks and please try to refrain from beating me up on the replies.

 

Oil pressure sending unit is bad. It's very common.

 

is that a quick fix? You know, my next door neighbor has an older vette, not a Z...he has Z06 envy...I've given him access to mine a few times. He couldn't pull a switcheroo on anything - could he??? See, second dumb question in less than one day!

 

While it might be a bad oil pressure sensing unit (and I don't know what is involved in changing one out), it also might not be...

Some things I'd note before running to replace the sensor. What was outside air temp (a winter storm has been rolling through much of the country). What was oil temp (do you have your DIC set to monitor oil temp)? What was engine rpm? What weight oil do you have in the car (5w30 or 10w30)? If you turn the car on now and let it idle, what is oil pressure?

A 5w30's oil is about 5-6 times more viscous (think thick) at 100F than it is at 212F (which is about normal operating temp for the oil). In cold weather, even after letting the engine idle for several minutes, the oil may be below 100F, and at those temps the oil is even thicker. The oil pump is a positive displacement pump, which means flow is based on engine rpm only. Oil temp doesn't matter. If the engine is brought to high rpm (independent of how it got there, meaning you just eased up to say over 4000 rpm instead of flooring it) the oil pump will flow large amounts of thick oil and the pressure will skyrocket. To prevent damaging the system, the oil pump has a relief valve on it to flow oil back to the sump vice through your engine (which isn't good for oil flow). I believe this relief is in the range of 70-80 psi, so you may have reached that pressure. If this is the case, then your sensing unit may be fine.

I won't get my car over about 3000 rpm until the oil is over 150F and even then, the oil pressure can approach 70 psi or so at high rpm.

From what I've read of failed sensing unit, they peg at over 100 psi even with the car idling.

 

Thanks for the info....now I have even bigger problems...