Oil Pressure, M20?

[Jon_Bmw]

Just a quick question chaps, whats the standard oil pressure for an m20 at idle when cold and once warm.

I've just fitted a pressure gauge and at cold idle was at 50 psi, but was starting to drop after the car had been on 2 mins. Just seeing if this is normal, sounds fine to me.


Cheers for any input.

Jon

[Jon_Bmw]

Bump

Anyone got any ideas, or where i might find out?

[karlp]

It will drop as the engine warms up because the oil is thinning out.

Karl

[Jon_Bmw]

Cheers karl, i knew that, what i meant was that is 50 psi at cold idle ok? I know it'll drop when t warms up. Still no ideas anyone.

[Toby_Unna]

i hate oil pressure gauges! my mr2 has one and i spend half the time looking at it dropping lower than its supposed to when the engine gets hot sitting at traffic
whereas the bm does not have one and i never ever worry about it!

the one thing i have found with the mr2 is, as well as getting dirty, old oil (e.g. 6k on it) gives significantly lower pressure. even if u don't swap the filter, putting new oil in of the same grade gives more pressure. something to do with polymer chains getting broken up or something.

so you need new oil in to get the most accurate reading. sorry i can't help on what actual pressure u should have.

[Brianmoooore]

I have an Autodata workshop manual for the E30, which gives idle oil pressure as 7 - 28 PSI and oil pressure at max revs as 57 - 85 PSI.

[Jon_Bmw]

Cheers Toby and Brian i know what to look out for now. Its funny the ranges are so big in that book, once its on the track i will let you know what its like under full load. At idle yesterday when it was almost completely warm it was about 25-28. So that falls within those ranges


Cheers guys.

P.S It does have new oil and a filter in it as well.

[Ratfink]

As long as the pressure needle goes up when you rev it your ok, if it stays low all the time