Well guys, let me give you some general info of my car. It is a 91 Z28, L98 with 150K miles. I just recently install hedman longtubes with my own "true dual" system.

Here's my dilemma. After the header install and after setting the idle speed and checking TPS voltage and whatnot, I noticed my engine getting REALLY hot. Yeah, I know this might be normal, but I had it idling for about 8 minutes max. The engine started smoking really bad. At first I thought it was just the paint burning off. Well I have stopped and restarted it about 5 times this evening, letting cool each time, and every time it smokes like crazy. Then I noticed my oil guage read 0psi....it read 40psi when I first got it, then bounced between 50-60psi when I did the first oil change on it with mobile 1 5W-30 oil. Naturally though, I had to take the oil sending unit, or what I assume is that, off to get the headers in so I figured it was just a flawed reading. Well I got under my car after I shut it off for the last time this evening, and my oil pan was HOT, and it stayed hot. This was after idling at about 1k rpm for about 5-6mins. Even after my headers were cool enough to touch, the oil pan was still too hot to touch. My trans pan and valve covers were the exact same way as well. What I am wondering is could this be a sign of a failed oil pump? Excessive smoking, valve covers and oil pan getting EXTREMELY hot after just a couple minutes of idling? I did not pull the valve cover off yet to see if I was getting oil flow, but is what I described a bad sign? There just seems to be WAY too much heat in the engine bay after the header install, not to mention the deranged amount of smoke. Can anyone shed some light on this? All fluids and such are at the correct level and everything, and I am just worried of doing some major damage from letting it just idle.

 

The engine should get very hot, i'm not sure how hot but to hot to touch. It should also stay hot for a very long time. After all the engine is a huge iron heat sink. The headers cool off fast because the is not very much mass there, the tubing is very thin. I can keep my hands on my headers after about 10minutes after shutting it off.

I'd try and figure out why your oil pressure reads 0 before screwing around with stuff. Try a oil pressure guage.

The headers and some other stuff may smoke alittle till all the oil, dirt, paint and grim get burned off. You might also be getting oil vapor out of the breather, pvc, VC grommets, or some leak someplace.

 

Thanks for the reply. I was going to get an oil pressure guage and see why my stock one sucks, but if that doesn't work, then I'm lost.

edit: about the engine getting hot, I'm aware that it's supposed to get relatively hot. But from an experience in the past, I was in a hurry to change my oil and after driving around for 40 minutes, and letting the car sit for 5, I went to change the oil and it was naturally hot, as was the oil pan, but not comparable to that of what it felt like this evening when I touched it. Just got me kind of concerned since all the car was doing was idling for less than 10 minutes.

 

er, um, I know this might sound retarded, but what would be the best way to hook up an oil pressure guage? Just curious as to where I might hook one on the engine? Sorry, I'm a newb to guages and really have no experience with them or idea how they work.

 

Told you... you should have got them coated.

 

on the rear "china wall" near your distributor is a square head plug - or should be, anyways. it's really small, so be careful, but that is where you can hook up a mechanical gauge.

KAM

 

There is also a hole just above the oil filter or up on the front by the timing cover. Either will work. My mechanical is currently by the filter.

 

Did you jack the engine up to put the headers on and crack your oil psi. sender on the firewall? Just a idea........

 

No, I didn't jack the engine up at all. I was under the assumption that the "sending unit" right above the oil filter was for the oil guage and just figured since I had to take it out and put it back in that it got crud in it and was giving a false reading. i'm gonna attempt the mechanical guage thing sometime this week and see if that works.

Yeah yeah, I was planning to sometime later. Didn't feel like spending close to $200 right now when I am just attempting to get it running properly.

 

Ok, I don't really know a whole lot about newer engines, so....does your engine have an O2 sensor? If it does, and its not hooked up, the ecm would be in "Limp Home" mode, and adding headers leans out the mixture even further. Running lean would cause you to run hotter.