These Cows Sure Have Some Oil Pressure!!!

[Justin B.]

I finally had time to hook up the oil pressure gauge this week.  I machined a "manifold" that screws into the block and has provisions for attaching the oil pressure switch and the fitting for the gauge's pressure line.

I then fabricated a little panel for the meter to attach to.  I ran the nylon line from the engine to the gauge inside some 1/4" polyurethane line to keep it from kinking and chafing.  Time will tell whether this will be durable enough and I may very well wind up at work some morning with oil all over me!

After hooking everything up I found I had around 75 psi at idle and around 4k I had 115 psi.  Of course, this was with cold oil but found I could "blip" the throttle and have the needle approach the 150 psi mark!!

I will ride this around until I can verify my oil light issue and then decide whether or not to leave it in place...

[Bob_Roller]

That's pretty much what I've posted here a few times, 'Oak' Okleshen has said on a real cold day, that 165 psi oil pressure was possible !!!!

Pretty much explains the crushed oil filters .

What was the air temp then, around 75 F. ?

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

If this were to be a permanent install, would you use steel line, rather than the nylon?

[Justin B.]

Bob, these pictures were from this evening and probably 85 - 90 in the garage...

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

Bob, these pictures were from this evening and probably 85 - 90 in the garage...

You probably won't see 75 until January, at least, eh Justin?

[Justin B.]

Rob, in automotive applications I use copper tubing but since we have constant flexing in the steering head/neck area I don't know whether a solid line would live very long.  I may look into a steel-braided line...

[Justin B.]

A couple weeks ago it actually got down to 59 degrees one morning!  I damn near froze to death riding to work!  But the next week we were paying for it...

[Bob_Roller]

What weight oil is in the bike ?

[Justin B.]

Castrol GTX 20w50...  Once the new rings are broken in I'll probably switch it to Mobil 1 15w50...

[Bob_Roller]

So I guess when I leave the bike outside at work during the brief 'winter' we have here in Phoenix, I really need to keep the throttle usage to a minimum until the oil gets to 80-90 F.

Especially when I'm using 20w50 semi-synthetic oil all year long .

[Justin B.]

Same here.  I took it out for a freeway blast today and found then when fully warmed up I had 80 - 85 psi at about 85 mph.  Dropping backk down to 60 mph resulted in a reading that jittered around 65 psi - but no oil-light.  The needle reminded me of how a speedo reads out when the cable is on it's last legs.  I think I'm going to take a look at the filter...  I did a top-end job on this last winter and maybe crud has built up on the filter...

[Lucky_Lou]

If this were to be a permanent install, would you use steel line, rather than the nylon?

I would use the stainless goodridge line as on the front brakes.
Lou

[Justin B.]

Yeah, probably will order something like this kit:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G2960/?rtype=10

[Bob_Roller]

Any particular reason you didn't go with an electrical system, instead of a direct reading indicator ?

[Justin B.]

The electrical oil pressure senders are usually quite bulky so probably would have had to remote mount it, run plumbing, etc...  I figured the mechanical gauge would be simpler in the long run...  If I had a box full of braided line, AN fittings, etc, I might have done an electrical setup.