Some background info, oil pressure gauge is an autometer full sweep electric.

Put in a new built motor in spring 08 with a new topline oil pump. After ab a year I was having issues with the pressure falling after idling a while. It would be idling around 10psi (which is low I know) but it would just fall to 0 on the gauge. I could cut the car off and start it right back and it pumped back up fine. Anyways I bent a rod summer 09 and decided to change oil pump while I was in there. Went with a new Milling oil pump.

Everything was fine with it till today. Went to an autox event, oil was a tad low so topped it off before running. Oil pressure sits about 15-20psi at idle normally. After the first run a good bit of oil came out the breather, also oil pressure was sitting around 10psi. Cleaned up the oil and filled it back up. But now the oil pressure was a touch lower than normal at high rpms. Also on hard right hand turns oil pressure was dropping to 0 till I came out the turn (guessing the oil sloshed to the other side of the pan) still never had that happen before. Also now oil pressure was down to around 8psi at idle and would randomly drop to 0 at idle. To get it back up I would either have to rev it up till it built back up or turn it off and back on. Same thing the other one did.

I have no idea WTF is going on with this POS car. Its always something with this thing. Im about ready to just part it out and get a reliable car. Any ideas on whats going on? I dont want to pull the motor just to check it out.

Thanks guys

IIRC the general consensus is that the best oil pump is the OEM one.

I've heard too many horror stories of aftermarket units failing when stockers have been running reliably for ~250k miles.

Honestly I don't think I've EVER heard of a stock oil pump failing.

I'm currently having some issues with my autometer Z series fuel pressure gauge, I tap the gauge when its acting funny and it jumps to where it should be. I did have a problem with my oil pressure as well a while back, the post is on here somewhere. While driving it was fine for a bit but at idle the pressure would drop too low. Once it got bad enough the car finally lost all power and the rest was history. An idea would be to pull the oil pan and check your rods for any discoloration or metal shavings in the oil pan. I originally though my Melling oil pump was bad but turns out I had some junk in the turbo from the guy that sold it to me and it ended up in the oil pan and so forth and so on. I replaced it with a Melling High volume oil pump and I haven't had any issues with it and its been running for about a year now as well. Take it for what its worth but if I were you I would pull the pan and check it, you may be out some oil but then again it may save you from doing extensive damage to your engine, but then again you could have just a bad oil pressure gauge...

I would start with simple approaches first: Replace/clean the sender. The autometer sender's pinhole can get clogged with debris. It's happened to me and given me sporadic readings in the past.

You may also want to invest in a IJ oil pan baffle to keep the oil on the pickup in those hard rights.

Yea I will deffinately need to invest in an oil pan baffle. I have a brand new sending unit for that gauge that I might try. I just have a feeling its the pump again. Drove the car home about 100miles interstate. Stayed around 40psi which is normal but dropped to 10psi for a few seconds then pumped back up. But again idled at 8psi when I got home. Might try to tap a mech gauge into the car to double check the gauges accuracy also.

These issues just dont seem like normal oil pump failure. And this is the second pump that has done this shit. Im starting to wonder if there is another issue with the motor causing it to lose oil pressure. Has a small leak but nothing big. I do have an external oil cooler running from a sandwhich adapter.

http://s189.photobucket.com/albums/z173/SilvrEclipse/VID00001-20100824-1327.mp4

Heres a quick vid of the problem.

I assume the lower gauge on your column is oil pressure? I can't really tell which is which.

That looks like a failing sender, as the oil pressure should fluctuate with RPM and isn't. I'd verify the oil pressure with a mechanical gauge or new sender.

O sorry for not specifying the second gauge in the pillar is oil pressure. The bottom gauge is EGT but has not been tapped in the new manifold

I talked to a few people about this issue and one guy on tuners was saying to check the bearing clearences. That if there is to much gap it will cause low oil pressure at idle. Its wouldn't take that much work to platigage the rod bearings again just to verify they are within spec still. I check them when I rebuilt the motor and they were fine. I cant imagen they would have worn that much without a bearing going out with it.

I tryed shimming the spring on the oil pump today as a quick fix and got the oil pressure to increase a good bit in higher rpms but at idle it didn't not change at all. I just dont want to replace the oil pump again if its not the cause of the problem.

Any more input?

you're oil light isnt coming on in the dash, and it looks like the sending unit can't read lower than 8psi. it should settle around 4psi. Try something simple. try using a higher viscosity oil. I agree w/ dino. sender unit.

Stock oil light is disconnected. When I put the turbo feed in I put in the autometer gauge instead of the stock pressure switch.