Oil Pressure

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MOPARJ

MOPARJ

What can I upgrade now?
Joined
Nov 3, 2006
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Thousand Oaks, Ca
My father has a 71 318 in a 70 Swinger. The package is much like mine, 97,000 miles on engine, Comp 260 cam, running Royal Purple 10w40 synthetic. My question is that at idle when warm/hot, it has 14-15 psi of pressure( this is in drive at 750 RPM), and when the revs come up to 2000, it rises to 43-45psi, and 48-49 psi at 2500 RPM when hot. At cold idle, it has 60 psi. I runs strong with plenty of power for its age, it will still boil the hides. It has no knocks or anything like that. The only thing it has, which is similar to my 318, is a very slight rocker click when it gets warm, probably a worn pushrod or rocker.Just wondered if these sound like decent, acceptable numbers. It doesnt bother me, just curious. My hardened plastic or nylon tube that runs to my Sunpro gauge is a little long, which could impeade flow to the gauge, i guess lowering the reading. Let me know what you think. He has always ran Napa Gold filters on it. Thanks.
 
It is probably just worn out a bit. The bearings, crank, rod, cam are probably worn. Still good at speed. Napa filters are good units.
The pushrods and rockers also probably have some wear on them as well. If it is that bothersome, you can get HD rockers from MoPar along with new pushrods and lifters. If you get lifters, I would run some dino oil on them for a while before returning to sythn oil.

My 318 also has this high to low oil pressure drop just like yours. When I opened it up, I did the cam bearings. Slight improvment. Crank and rods bearings would have help alot, but it is still in a safe zone so I'm not worried.
 
10 lbs per 1000 rpm is pretty safe, and a higher viscosity oil like 20/50 would probobly raise that hot pressure a little, but also take more power to pump. I work on some old 2 stroke diesels that only have 3lbs hot idle pressure with straight 40wt oil! They run a long tome too, and the bearings look like new when you overhaul them. Go figure!
 
He he he, would you like to see some paper work on one 318 with over 300,000 miles when the record keeping stopped in '89 (or so) when the kids got the car for collage 200 miles away?

Thats mine. Just keep the fluid fresh.
 
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