momentary oil starvation

[outersquare]

the other day, while I was sliding my car around hard in an empty parking lot, I managed to swing around the car hard enough that the low oil pressure light came on.

What probably happened was I sloshed enough oil away from the pickup to cause the line to be momentarily empty. This last only a second at near idle throttle. How bad is this for the car? :\

 

[Ugly3]

Not good but for a duration of a second or two no problem.

 

[Asteroid]

Get some black tape stick over the oil pressure light then you wont have to worry about it.

 

[TallPaul]

Many years ago when I had a car with an oil pressure light I remember that happening on a couple of panic stops. Since it is a brief occurance, it is pretty much similar to when you cold start or an after oil change start, but probably not nearly as bad. I would not worry about it. But make sure you have a clear path. When I was 17 I tried (not sure if on purpose) to do a 180 on a side street and ended up slamming sideways into the curb. Right rear wheel wobbled after that. Had to get a new axle.

[ October 09, 2004, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: TallPaul ]

 

[mountravlr]

It's likely that the oil's additive package has an anti-wear ingredient which would allow some margin of lubrication even during a brief oil pressure drop.

 

[55Test]

Most owners manuals say that it's acceptable if the oil pressure light flickers on at idle occasionally, so I guess it wouldn't do much harm, but if it happened often enough you might be looking at some trouble.

 

[Gary Allan]

Hey, don't worry about it. The class after mine (auto training) had a Vietnamese who could barely speak English. He was very smart ..but natually had problems adapting to the language. One day he came into class and said "Mista Mirrah ...what does O-I-L mean? Red light on dash ..bin on two days." The class changed it out (two plopps came out) ..and off he drove in ignorant bliss.

Now seeing that you actually know what the light means ...I'm surprised that your rear (or front, as it may be)wheels didn't instantly lock up.

 

[TC]

Lack of oil for a second -- or even a few seconds -- is of no great significance. Each time you start a cold engine, you're experiencing several seconds of relatively "dry" operation. Over the engine lifetime, I assume this adds up to several minutes of non-continuous dry operation.

Expanding on Michael's comments, newer tires on older cars can result in higher G forces than powerplant engineers anticipated, something to consider. Experimenting by bumping up the oil level by a modest (and harmless) 10% or so (maybe a half-quart in most engines) might be a good place to start.

 

[Michael SR]

yours is a very different situation, but note that all cars with oil starvation problem on track do eventually experience engine failures. there might be some that were raced only once or twice without problems, but any car raced regularly (especially on race tires) that sees zero oil pressure at some point on track, will have problems.

it's interesting to see what cars can handle this duty with stock oiling systems. i have often wondered if it's a coincidence, or if the manufacturer specifically designed the system to handle that usage.

and for the cars that can't handle it, it makes me wonder what kind of testing was done. i had always assumed every manufacturer flogs their test mules around racetracks, but maybe they don't.

fwiw, the later C4 corvette oiling system is one of the good ones. it has baffling in the pan, a windage tray that is part of the engine but integrates with the baffling in the oil pan, and a very nice pickup tube that has a gentler bend and larger diameter than sbc stuff of yore. i have seen more oiling problems on those cars with aftermarket racing pans than with the stock system!

-michael