Long story shortI originally owned this car a couple years ago and dd without any issues. Sold it to a friend who stripped it for paint and then let it sit in his garage. Then I bought it back from him. Total time it sat was about a year with a few drives here and there in it. I bought it back, swapped in a t56 and doug's longtubes. Before I started the install I made sure to start and let it idle for a bit to make sure everything was ok. I didn't notice any abnormally high oil pressure then. Upon installing the headers I pulled the oil cooler off and put on another new k&n oil filter (only kind I use).

After getting everything installed I started the car and noticed that it now has almost 60psi of pressure (even when warm) at idle. And will almost peg the stock gauge with a quick rev. Engine to my knowledge is stock with almost 160k miles on it. I was told it was rebuilt but no proof.

Oil is 5qts of Mobil 1 10w30 and whatever the reccomended k&n filter is. The same combo I put nearly 30-40k miles on the car with without incident.

Any ideas?

 

Have you checked the stock gauge reading against a known good mech one?
Gauge sensor may be bad ; common

 

I was wondering about that. I have a brand new electric gauge that was going into the pillar but that still isn't a guarantee. I'll see if I can track down a mechanical one before I do any major changing.

 

Mine does that.....its called good ole chevy!

-wount (peg) it though....does make 70 ppi when cold too.

 

See, I am worried that something is actually wrong. Before I made all these changes it would have normal pressure. Don't really remember for sure the exact pressure but it wasn't as high as it is now. But all of a sudden its damn near pegging the gauge. If it had been high all along I wouldn't be as worried now, but the sudden jump has me a little on edge.

BTW, still no mech. gauge yet. I was hoping to get a few more ideas on what it could be, before I started taking things apart kind of blindly.

 

In all likelihood, it is simply a failed sending unit. The new ones are rather notorious for that. You should be able to rent/borrow a mechanical gauge from Advance Auto, Auto Zone, Pep Boys, or some similar establishment around you. Or, you could just replace the sending unit, and probably fix the problem.

 

Was a high pressure oil pump installed before you bought the car back?