Oil change and other changes

[ratsnst1]

Originally Posted by RedBarchetta

I can't believe no one else brought this up.

Gunner, how long has your motor been running a 20 psi (or less) oil pressure at IDLE? And what is your idle set at? As a general rule of thumb, you need 10psi for every 1,000 rpm, and at a 1,000 rpm idle a healthy motor should show around 40psi. You are half that, which concerns me that your bearings are showing wear.

I had this condition (lost oil pressure and suddenly had hot idle around 20-25). Pulled the pan and a couple main caps and I was showing some brass on the bearings. All crank journals looked good, so I swapped out the crankshaft bearings (with motor in the car) and also did the connecting rod bearings while I had it all apart. For insurance added a new oil pump (I think I sucked in some slag from my oil cooler and that scored the bearings). This fixed my problem and I now have excellent oil pressure.

-Dean

I thought you could only do stuff like that on big rig trucks, I did a inframe on one of my kenworth trucks I had, but on a cobra, but I guess so, very cool.

[RedBarchetta]

Originally Posted by CobraEd

I always felt that it was no big deal to just pop in new bearings with the engine right in the car. a 2 hr job at best.

2 hours? Damn, you must have experience on a Top Fuel drag team.

Originally Posted by ratsnst1

I thought you could only do stuff like that on big rig trucks, I did a inframe on one of my kenworth trucks I had, but on a cobra, but I guess so, very cool.

On the SPF, the pan drops straight down between the frame rails (no crossmember directly across the bottom of the engine). The only trick was getting the saddle bearings out. Used a couple fabricated "tools" to accomplish this (think bent cotter pin)...that was the toughest part. Plastigaged everything to within .001-.002 and the rest was just torquing it all back together properly. Probably had 8 hours in the job by the time I was done...I'm very meticulous and take my time on most jobs.

-Dean