Hi,

I took my injectors off over the weekend and noticed that they had oil on them, curious what causes this? No oil in intake tract, injectors on both sides had it.

Second, my oil pressure gauge is reading basically 0 when the engine is hot (45 minutes + of running). It is an aftermarket equus gauge, electric sending unit, installed on the T of the oil feed for my turbos. What might be causing this? Gauge is ~1.5 months old. I was thinking the sending unit (but it is working fine except when oil is hot), if it is something mechanical like my oil pump or pickup tube screen, how do I test it (without dropping the pan preferably)? BTW, my in car oil gauge is reading normal. I just took the T apart last weekend and there is nothing clogging the sender or anything after it.

Thanks.

 

Are you running a PCV system? The oil vapor can hit the injectors and then it will condensate on them. Most likely thing I can think of if you are 100% sure you don't have oil spewing into the intake or coming from your fuel tank haha.

Electrical sending units tend to act up more when hot if they are marginal. I had one that would cycle between working and not working warm, so I thought my engine was losing oil pressure randomly. Best way to check your engine is use a manual gauge while the electrical is acting up. Read the voltage leaving the sending unit in the normal range while it's working, and then again when it's hot and malfunctioning. I seriously doubt it's the gauge itself, I'm betting on the sender.

 

I am thinking it is the sender, but not 100% sure. I have an open PCV system, so it isn't that. Kind of weird though. Maybe exhaust back pressure pre-turbo? If it was one side or one injector I think it would be easier to diagnose, but it was all of them, some more than others. I guess I can try and figure out which ones have more oil and start snooping around there.

 

Check your turbo piping at its lowest spot and see if you have a pool of oil there.

 

I thought about it being caused by the turbos hot side, but it seems unlikely with how far from the engine the turbos are, it would most likely be burned off before it had a chance to move back into the engine. If you are saying the engine is pushing oil into the exhaust, that is a different story. Again though, it would probably be burned off, plus in either case it would have to make it from the exhaust, into the combustion chamber, and out the intake valves, all moving against air flow. BTW there is oil in the exhaust, post turbo, but I always assumed it was from the china chargers.

I was thinking bad valve seals? I don't know anything about heads though, pretty much the only part of an engine I have never had to fix. If the oil pressure is high enough, it could be pushing oil past the seals?

 

I look at it this way , it's the sender or gauge. If you had O oil pressure after 45 mins of running you would not have an engine left.

 

It is near zero, not at zero. But I agree with you, the problem happened slowly since I bought the gauge, and I have changed the oil with no effect (I thought it was heat breaking down the oil at first). I am kind of a hypochondriac with this POS though. The passenger side turbo has been making more an more noise lately, the AFR on the passenger side is richer than the driver side, and there is a coating of oil on my all injectors. They are all probably unrelated but it is the cumulative effect of always having to deal with BS. Someone on the tuning forums told me I destroyed my tune, even though I only followed his and another persons directions. I just want it to run right, I haven't been able to enjoy the turbos lately because of all of the tuning and misc issues I have been having.

I thought I was so cool cause I was going to build and tune my own turbo kit. I spent more money building it than it would have cost to buy a kit.

Anyway I need to go dry off my vagina, thanks for the input. If anyone else has any suggestions let me know.

 

Invest in jack stands like the rest of us.

 

Lol, got that too. One of these days I will get a garage. I am working under my car on a public street because my complex forbids working on your car. I think sometimes people think I am dead because I am in the same spot under the car for hours.

 

I agree with 302f150, sounds like you might have some oil making its way into your charge air ... that would be a logical explanation for seeing some oil on the injectors. The oil pressure issue has to be an issue with the sending unit, I made the mistake of using color matched gauges with my setup and have a similar issue as engine temp increases ...