Your fine, if you have 5 bars, that breaks down to 20% per bar, which is well within the boundaries you are wanting. Mine goes up with speed and down while idling in both my cars, one of which is a GMC V6 and the other a 5.3 V8.
Would thicker oil in a high mileage GM 3.6L V6 help raise idle oil pressure?
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Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by pitzel
Why do you feel that you 'need' additional oil pressure? What do you think you'll accomplish with higher oil pressure?
I don't like seeing the gauge go to nothing at idle.
But the "gauge" you have is basically meaningless. No bars might mean you have 20 psi. Until you test with a real gauge, you have nothing to go on.
Originally Posted by pitzel
Why do you feel that you 'need' additional oil pressure? What do you think you'll accomplish with higher oil pressure?
I don't like seeing the gauge go to nothing at idle.
But the "gauge" you have is basically meaningless. No bars might mean you have 20 psi. Until you test with a real gauge, you have nothing to go on.
Originally Posted by Big_3_Only
I kept being told that I needed very little OP at idle. But it was nerve racking to say the least.
True.
Even if you have no pressure, you still have flow.
The older "Stovebolt" Chevy 6's had non-pressurized rod bearings for decades.
Flow is needed, pressure is not.
I've seen multiple car and truck engines in my life with less than 5 psi at idle (some actually showed ZERO) and they ran for years and years.
You could try a 20W-50 oil - - it's cheap and available, and you need to experiment a little for fun anyway.
I kept being told that I needed very little OP at idle. But it was nerve racking to say the least.
True.
Even if you have no pressure, you still have flow.
The older "Stovebolt" Chevy 6's had non-pressurized rod bearings for decades.
Flow is needed, pressure is not.
I've seen multiple car and truck engines in my life with less than 5 psi at idle (some actually showed ZERO) and they ran for years and years.
You could try a 20W-50 oil - - it's cheap and available, and you need to experiment a little for fun anyway.
Sounds like you are bent on running 40 or 50 grade oil. Go ahead and come back and tell us how it didn't work.
Ofcourse thicker oil would raise the oil pressure.
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by Win
your pic of the idle oil pressure looks completely normal to me; you should see 1 to 1.5 bar at idle increasing to 3 to 3.5 bar at normal operating RPM.
That's how it looks right after it's warmed up. After coming off the highway it will have 1 bar. If there is lots of stop and go traffic like the last traffic jam, it shows no bars. Will try the 5-40 just to see what it does.
This sounds completely normal to me, other than the drop below 1 bar, which just means the pressure is between 0 and 15 PSI, so I wouldn't worry about it.
This variant of the HF V6 has full control of the timing of both the intake and the exhaust cams, and the car utilizes this variability for everything, right down to exhaust gas recirculation. Thicker oils probably would not damage the engine, but anything that affects the cam controls will have an adverse effect on the engine performance.
If you post a picture of your engine, I might be able to tell you if you have a Fishermans Bend engine, or a U.S. sourced engine. I do not believe any Suzuki built HF V6's made it into these cars.
Quote
...This is the "high feature" v6, right? The camchain eater? ...
Most, but not all, of these V6 cars got Australian engines from the Fishermans bend plant. The Oshawa assembled Torrent GXP I bought for my wife has a Suzuki built HF V6 installed. I am not aware of any of the Australian or Japanese manufactured HF V6 engines having had bad cam chains installed.
Hopefully OP was not duped into changing the chains.
Originally Posted by Win
your pic of the idle oil pressure looks completely normal to me; you should see 1 to 1.5 bar at idle increasing to 3 to 3.5 bar at normal operating RPM.
That's how it looks right after it's warmed up. After coming off the highway it will have 1 bar. If there is lots of stop and go traffic like the last traffic jam, it shows no bars. Will try the 5-40 just to see what it does.
This sounds completely normal to me, other than the drop below 1 bar, which just means the pressure is between 0 and 15 PSI, so I wouldn't worry about it.
This variant of the HF V6 has full control of the timing of both the intake and the exhaust cams, and the car utilizes this variability for everything, right down to exhaust gas recirculation. Thicker oils probably would not damage the engine, but anything that affects the cam controls will have an adverse effect on the engine performance.
If you post a picture of your engine, I might be able to tell you if you have a Fishermans Bend engine, or a U.S. sourced engine. I do not believe any Suzuki built HF V6's made it into these cars.
Quote
...This is the "high feature" v6, right? The camchain eater? ...
Most, but not all, of these V6 cars got Australian engines from the Fishermans bend plant. The Oshawa assembled Torrent GXP I bought for my wife has a Suzuki built HF V6 installed. I am not aware of any of the Australian or Japanese manufactured HF V6 engines having had bad cam chains installed.
Hopefully OP was not duped into changing the chains.
Originally Posted by Win
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by Win
your pic of the idle oil pressure looks completely normal to me; you should see 1 to 1.5 bar at idle increasing to 3 to 3.5 bar at normal operating RPM.
That's how it looks right after it's warmed up. After coming off the highway it will have 1 bar. If there is lots of stop and go traffic like the last traffic jam, it shows no bars. Will try the 5-40 just to see what it does.
This sounds completely normal to me, other than the drop below 1 bar, which just means the pressure is between 0 and 15 PSI, so I wouldn't worry about it.
This variant of the HF V6 has full control of the timing of both the intake and the exhaust cams, and the car utilizes this variability for everything, right down to exhaust gas recirculation. Thicker oils probably would not damage the engine, but anything that affects the cam controls will have an adverse effect on the engine performance.
If you post a picture of your engine, I might be able to tell you if you have a Fishermans Bend engine, or a U.S. sourced engine. I do not believe any Suzuki built HF V6's made it into these cars.
Quote
...This is the "high feature" v6, right? The camchain eater? ...
Most, but not all, of these V6 cars got Australian engines from the Fishermans bend plant. The Oshawa assembled Torrent GXP I bought for my wife has a Suzuki built HF V6 installed. I am not aware of any of the Australian or Japanese manufactured HF V6 engines having had bad cam chains installed.
Hopefully OP was not duped into changing the chains.
It was throwing codes for cam timing so the chains needed to be changed. I won't worry about the oil pressure but I'll bet anything that when I put it up for sale in a few weeks and list it here in the Items For Sale section, somebody is going ask if "I fixed the low pressure" even if there is nothing to be fixed and is normal for this car.
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by Win
your pic of the idle oil pressure looks completely normal to me; you should see 1 to 1.5 bar at idle increasing to 3 to 3.5 bar at normal operating RPM.
That's how it looks right after it's warmed up. After coming off the highway it will have 1 bar. If there is lots of stop and go traffic like the last traffic jam, it shows no bars. Will try the 5-40 just to see what it does.
This sounds completely normal to me, other than the drop below 1 bar, which just means the pressure is between 0 and 15 PSI, so I wouldn't worry about it.
This variant of the HF V6 has full control of the timing of both the intake and the exhaust cams, and the car utilizes this variability for everything, right down to exhaust gas recirculation. Thicker oils probably would not damage the engine, but anything that affects the cam controls will have an adverse effect on the engine performance.
If you post a picture of your engine, I might be able to tell you if you have a Fishermans Bend engine, or a U.S. sourced engine. I do not believe any Suzuki built HF V6's made it into these cars.
Quote
...This is the "high feature" v6, right? The camchain eater? ...
Most, but not all, of these V6 cars got Australian engines from the Fishermans bend plant. The Oshawa assembled Torrent GXP I bought for my wife has a Suzuki built HF V6 installed. I am not aware of any of the Australian or Japanese manufactured HF V6 engines having had bad cam chains installed.
Hopefully OP was not duped into changing the chains.
It was throwing codes for cam timing so the chains needed to be changed. I won't worry about the oil pressure but I'll bet anything that when I put it up for sale in a few weeks and list it here in the Items For Sale section, somebody is going ask if "I fixed the low pressure" even if there is nothing to be fixed and is normal for this car.
Idle pressures are far lower than high-RPM pressures, especially if the RPM is very low, such as with the transmission in D and the car stopped. It should probably be OK if the warning light doesn't come on. If you're really worried, buy an oil-pressure gauge and compare it the OEM-repair-manual specs. In fact, since you already have a gauge, you should be able to use a voltmeter to convert it to psi if you find the conversion table.
I remember once my oil-pressure switch was leaking and the warning light would come on at low RPMs.
I remember once my oil-pressure switch was leaking and the warning light would come on at low RPMs.
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