Need help motor appears to lose oil pressure

Wraith · Jul 9, 2016

4.6 3v new motor turbo setup. Stock pan, 2013 gt500 pump with boundary gears. Running 30w breakin oil. Motor starts shows 40psi at idle warm. Gauge is under hood (looking to extend or put inside). While driving the car will literally start to knock and try and die. Sounds like bottom end noise. I can shut it down and fire right back up and it will be fine. Running 6.5 quarts oil right now maybe more??

Thinking it's not draining back to the pan or something odd? Maybe o ring on pick up was not installed by builder?

Other ideas?

skwerl · Jul 9, 2016

Ford modular motors need a 5w oil to flow through the head orifices, possibly a 10w. 5w-20 or 5w-30 should be your primary choices. You better have a damn good reason to be using a 30w oil, something other than 'thicker is better'.

BruceH · Jul 9, 2016

Wraith said:
4.6 3v new motor turbo setup. Stock pan, 2013 gt500 pump with boundary gears. Running 30w breakin oil. Motor starts shows 40psi at idle warm. Gauge is under hood (looking to extend or put inside). While driving the car will literally start to knock and try and die. Sounds like bottom end noise. I can shut it down and fire right back up and it will be fine. Running 6.5 quarts oil right now maybe more??

Thinking it's not draining back to the pan or something odd? Maybe o ring on pick up was not installed by builder?

Other ideas?

I'd drain the oil, cut the filter open and take a look. If the oil psi is too high (caused by thick oil at higher rpms, wrong clearances for oil and motor, blockage) the oil pump will open a pressure relief valve and oil flow to the motor will be reduced (high viscosity oil increases psi due to more restriction when being pushed into the bearings, this in turn results in less flow). The pressure relief spring is calibrated by Ford for the motor clearances, oil viscosity, and expected rpm range. Change the clearances, pump gear displacement, or oil viscosity and the pressure relief is no longer calibrated for the motor. Not enough oil flow will cause damage. You could be hearing the oil wedge breaking down and the subsequent bearing to crank surfaces hitting each other. This can happen with the wrong oil even if the pressure relief valve isn't being activated. It's a worse case scenario and hopefully not what's happening. Once the oil is fully warmed up it should flow correctly in your motor provided the 30w rating is in accordance with recognized specs.

Seriously, I'd be looking for bearing material in the filter and oil. Not saying that's what's going on but a set of bearings is far less of hit than having the whole motor go.

Worst case scenario aside how about the turbo?

Oil fed turbo? How much oil do you think the turbo is using? Does the turbo have a recommended oil viscosity? Maybe the turbo return line isn't supplying enough oil to the motor at higher rpms?

Wraith · Jul 10, 2016

Bruce,

Glad you replied you have come up in some searches online today. So today we went the route of thinking we had something in the pick up. We found this:

We figured we had it so we cleaned pan put in new pickup buttoned it up with fresh oil and filter 10w30 joe fibs driven oil. Took for spin and within 5 minutes we had low oil pressure warning. No noises at this point and we still question the validity of the warning.

Did some light driving and started to push a bit rpm into and and it started all the low idle chain slap type noise. Got it home rigged up gauge was like 20psi pressure!!!

Shut it off called builder. He says with the tolerances of .002 I have that the gt500 pump won't do the job? I find this hard to believe likewise that tolerance is on the loose side.

Another friend who has built a few mod motors recommended I step up the viscosity on the oil to like 20w50 or similar see what happens.

Going to add a perm gauge for oil pressure and try that I guess.

I'm starting to think this motor might be coming out[emoji35][emoji35][emoji35]

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BruceH · Jul 10, 2016

Wraith said:
Bruce,

Glad you replied you have come up in some searches online today. So today we went the route of thinking we had something in the pick up. We found this:

View attachment 56900

We figured we had it so we cleaned pan put in new pickup buttoned it up with fresh oil and filter 10w30 joe fibs driven oil. Took for spin and within 5 minutes we had low oil pressure warning. No noises at this point and we still question the validity of the warning.

Did some light driving and started to push a bit rpm into and and it started all the low idle chain slap type noise. Got it home rigged up gauge was like 20psi pressure!!!

Shut it off called builder. He says with the tolerances of .002 I have that the gt500 pump won't do the job? I find this hard to believe likewise that tolerance is on the loose side.

Another friend who has built a few mod motors recommended I step up the viscosity on the oil to like 20w50 or similar see what happens.

Going to add a perm gauge for oil pressure and try that I guess.

I'm starting to think this motor might be coming out[emoji35][emoji35][emoji35]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

.002" for bearing clearances should be good. The pics look like some rtv squeeze out, nothing major. Is there more that isn't showing up in the pics?

What about your turbo? Do you think it's starving the motor of oil at times?

Just to clarify, the noise is only at higher rpms, is that correct? It's not a high load/low rpm rattle from going wot at low rpm in the wrong gear.

Wraith · Jul 11, 2016

Have to check the turbo. The drain should good best we can tell it's straight down with a turn at the pan?

The noise is low rpm not been high rpm enough yet to know.

Got a gauge coming Tuesday its parked till then

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Wraith · Jul 11, 2016

20w50 and gauge. Motor has 20 psi op at idle which is low but does has some loose .002 clearances and was up in 60 and 70 range while driving. What are the stock op ranges which are acceptable on 3v?

Noise came back took poor video.

Seems like it's in drivers side head
https://vimeo.com/174285561

The drivers side cam was the one which originally was 180 out and we retimed. Perhaps we goofed on tensioner? Is there a way to really test one in the car?

Also with the bigger tolerances should I think about a higher volume and pressure pump than the 13 gt500 one? Perhaps I should cut loses and tighten up tolerances now and not worry about pump?

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Kylar · Jul 12, 2016

Wraith said:
20w50 and gauge. Motor has 20 psi op at idle which is low but does has some loose .002 clearances and was up in 60 and 70 range while driving. What are the stock op ranges which are acceptable on 3v?

Noise came back took poor video.

Seems like it's in drivers side head
https://vimeo.com/174285561

The drivers side cam was the one which originally was 180 out and we retimed. Perhaps we goofed on tensioner? Is there a way to really test one in the car?

Also with the bigger tolerances should I think about a higher volume and pressure pump than the 13 gt500 one? Perhaps I should cut loses and tighten up tolerances now and not worry about pump?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I cringed hearing the noise. Sounds like mechanical damage to me. Something is hitting something (obviously) Just not sure what. Trying different oil will not fix that noise at this point in my opinion. Whatever is going on now will not be fixed by oil alone.

Have you tried using a stethoscope to try and pin point the noise location.

joedls · Jul 12, 2016

Mine sounded just like that. Ended up being a bent phaser.

Wraith · Jul 12, 2016

Unplugged the vct solenoids today made drive and noise gone. Pressures still out of whack with 20w50 is 15psi idle and 35 @2000 rpm. Starting to think I will swap my boundary gears for some tss. Can't really find a definitive answer one way or another if that is it but Lito and I have been discussing a lot and it's about the only logical next step short of a fire bomb

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truckman7 · Jul 13, 2016

Our 3v motors are made to take 5w synthetic. I didn't see if the motor was stock,but if it is even putting in 30w oil can do damage. Let alone 20w. Even in my Brenspeed 326 the highest weight they say to use is conventional 10w30. This is due to the oil jackets being drilled bigger. If not, heavier oil will cause blocking issues in the passages thus staving the engine for oil and causing damage. Also timing issues can happen. I.e., something stuck in the vct's. If ask ur builder if anything was done to the oil jackets. Hopefully no damage was done.

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Wraith · Jul 13, 2016

Nothing changed with oil jackets. I have a set of tss gears coming for it and will go back down in viscosity after we swap those in once compared with boundary gears within.

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truckman7 · Jul 14, 2016

That's sounds gd. I've got the frpp high pressure gears. What I do is I get 6 qts of trans fluid, oil and 2 filters. Fill up with the trans fluid and let it run for bout 10 min. It'll clean all the jackets supplies and drains. Everything that oil touches. It's a great cleaner, instead of taking everything apart. I do that every 2 oil changes. Or 1 a year. I do 2 oil changes per year. Goes in red, comes out black. I haven't had any probs doing this.

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Wraith · Jul 14, 2016

^^^i have never heard of this? It's a fresh motor so probably not needed it's run very little

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truckman7 · Jul 14, 2016

Wraith said:
^^^i have never heard of this? It's a fresh motor so probably not needed it's run very little

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It's an old timers trick used when buying an older car. People used to put that lifter noise stopper in the oil or saw dust or some other type of additive so they could sell the car. This cleans it all out. A lot of people I talk with don't know this will work and since most trans fluid is synthetic it flows though our motors easily. I even do this with my wife's new Ford Edge. But it does work. Very well.

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01yellerCobra · Jul 14, 2016

I've heard of adding a couple quarts of ATF a couple hundred miles before an oil change. But I've never known anyone to run straight ATF.

truckman7 · Jul 14, 2016

Yep. I do. Only for 10 min at idle. I took it to a dealer to see how much they'd give me for a trade in. They scoped it and said they never saw an engine so clean before.

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Wraith · Aug 3, 2016

Installed new pump with tss gears problem has been solve.

Need help motor appears to lose oil pressure

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