Strange oil pressure change

[MoparMap]

So late last year after a dyno day I found out my car made a little puddle of oil when on the rollers. I looked it over good trying to find the cause and figured it was probably the oil cooler lines. I purchased some AN hose and fittings and made up my own replacements with checkered results. As it turned out, the swivel fittings I got did not appreciate being swiveled for some reason and the internal o-rings leaked (quite badly in one case) and caused havoc dumping oil all over. Once I found the problem and replaced the fittings things seem to be doing okay for several months, until the other day I noticed the oil pressure seemed to be quite high. Typically, a cold start might give me around 60-75 psi at idle, and once warm I was seeing numbers closer to 30. Normal operating pressure while driving was probably around 60-70. However, now the startup pressure is reading more like 90 and a hot idle is more like 50. Operating pressure is probably 75-80. Someone at work has suggested trying to get a mechanical gauge on it somewhere to test and make sure the sender isn't flakey, which I have no problem doing, but I wasn't sure if there was a good place to do this that anyone might suggest. Aside from this, anyone have any ideas what might be going on? Checked the level and it's in the safe zone, oil is between 3000-5000 miles old since I topped off the few quarts that leaked out when the line let go.

 

[Doug Supercharged Vipers]

What weight oil and what year is your car?

 

[steve e]

Maybe a piece of the o ring is stuck somewhere, and not letting the oil flow, I hope its just the sender

 

[MoparMap]

Car is an 04, oil should be standard spec, I think 10W-30 Mobil 1 off the top of my head. Weird that it just happened out of nowhere since I've always used the same oil. Seems like everything is just reading about twice as high as it used to, which is what makes me think the sender might be funny. Any ideas on a good point to tap it for a mechanical guage? Was thinking about just putting an AN fitting with a guage port at the oil cooler temporarily since that's the easiest place to get to, but didn't know if there was a spare port somewhere else. The car seems to act just fine, no strange noises or behavior that I can notice. For what it's worth, the filter is the SRT spec one, not a part store generic one and was replaced at the last oil change ~5000 miles ago.

 

[Mopar Steve]

I was going to suggest the filter but if it is a quality orig equip filter that probably isn't the problem. Wouldn't hurt to Change it just to eliminate the one possibility.

 

[MoparMap]

I've debated just doing a full oil change to try to rule out something weird there, but figured it would be nice to try to verify that the gauge is indeed reading correctly before spending the money on oil and a filter.

 

[WANTED]

I've debated just doing a full oil change to try to rule out something weird there, but figured it would be nice to try to verify that the gauge is indeed reading correctly before spending the money on oil and a filter.

you stated oil is 3000-5000 miles old. $100 for oil and filter, time to change it anyhow so start there.

 

[MoparMap]

I've actually been doing 10k intervals. Between the fact that there's 10 quarts of full synthetic and almost all low load highway miles, I'm really not pushing anything terribly hard. It's my daily, so it sees 20k miles a year. The 3000 mile oil change stuff is bogus to me with the lubricants and engine design nowadays. I had a 2000 XKR that ran 10 quarts of full synthetic and recommended 10k intervals in the manual. If I was racing it all the time I could understand changing it more often, but the engine probably spends 75% of it's miles under 2000 rpm.

 

[Mopar Steve]

While you are correct the lubrication properties of the synthetic oils will last, the additives (detergent etc) will not. The oil needs to be changed regularly. for the price/value of the car, change the oil.