Quote:
Originally Posted by MotorvateDIY
This is a great idea! I will add my results in a few days.
If your pressure sensor mounts in a sandwich plate, you are measuring the oil pressure going INTO the oil filter. This reading will be higher than the actual engine oil pressure, since it takes some pressure to push the oil through the filter.
If your pressure sensor is mounted in the factory location, you are measuring the oil pressure AFTER the oil filter.
On a future episode MotorvateDIY Garage, we will show how much pressure it takes to push oil through the oil filter.
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Interesting. I can only share my experience. Initially, I installed an AEM oil pressure gauge (0-150 psi) based on a DIY posted by Spearfish some time ago. I removed the factory sensor and replaced it with the AEM sensor (I didn't bother installing a tee fitting to accommodate both sensors). With that set-up, I would see a reading of about 90-100 psi on a cold start, which dropped rapidly as indicated above by Rusty. At operating temperature (200F), I would see a reading of 18-20 psi at idle (no load). I can't recall exactly what the readings were under load at operating temperature, but they varied from about 70-85 psi at 2,500 to 3,000 rpm in 6th gear. I was running Motul 8100 X-Clean 5W-30 at the time. The next year, I switched to the Defi Red Racer Gauge (see above) since I preferred its appearance and it seemed to be more reliable. I re-installed the factory sensor in its original location and installed the Defi sensor on the oil filter sandwich plate (see above). I continued to run with the Motul oil (... only switched to the Nissan Ester oil at my last oil change when I took the readings shown in my earlier post). Anyway, I didn't notice any remarkable difference in readings after switching the sensor location. In fact, the readings remained virtually unchanged. I still continued to see a reading of 20 psi at idle under no load at operating temperature (200F).