Hey my car a 91' accord with 176,000 miles seems to have low oil pressure only at idle and when the engine is hot. I have a guage installed and the first line on the guage is 12.5psi and it is about 3/4 of the way between 0 and 12.5. The service manual says 10psi is the minimum at idle and 50 at 3000 rpms. The light comes on around 3 or 4 psi from what I read.

The car is a little noisy, but all of these cars are. The valves are adjusted, but the noise comes from the injectors.

But when I get to around 3000rpms I have well over 50 psi I have around 60.

Should I worry about the oil pressure?

Im running 10w30 right now.

Should I bump it up to 10w40?

 

I would suspect a faulty oil switch. They are inexpensive. I would replace and see if problem goes away.

Or you could get a more precise pressure gauge and check further.

I doubt changing to heavier oil will make any difference once the engine is fully warm.

good luck

 

I don't have a oil switch in the car right now. I just have a $20 machanical oil pressure guage. I e-mailed the company and they said it is accurate to 5% or something like that.


With 5w30 in the car it had just about 0psi at idle and good at 3000 rpms. Even just raising the rpms to 1000 then and now made a world of difference it brings it up to about 15-20psi

 

Just a quick question would you still follow the 10psi for every 1000 rpms. So at 700rpms it would only need 7psi

 

I don't know if the oil pressure is linear to rpm like you are asking.

I am confused, you said in your first post that the oil pressure is around 10 psi (3/4 up the gauge to the 12.5 mark). In a later post, you said you have 0 psi. Can you clear this up?

 

Ya i'm sorry about that. I have around 10psi maybe a little bit lower.

The 0 psi well realy maybe 3-4psi was before I switched over to 10w30

 

Oil viscosity will reduce significantly from cold engine to fully warmed, so if you're barely making it w/ a cold engine, you may have problems fully warmed.

My point about the oil pressure switch is that it may be a faulty switch giving the low oil pressure light. This is not uncommon.

good luck

 

With a cold engine I have grat oil pressure. 75 at idle and 100 revved a bit.