Thread: Oil Light Issues

Note: Found out what was wrong, problem is fixed right here

On Saturday I installed a new Knock Sensor, that was a pain in the rear end!

After I replaced the Knock Sensor I also bumped up the timing from 11* to 17*. On Sunday evening I was driving, it was really cold outside, and stopped on a stop light and first the first time ever, the oil light started creeping on.

Except it was lightly blinking like a strobe light, until it would fully light up, then it would shut off when I started driving.

I thought my engine was low on oil, because it's known to steal some oil, but when I checked the oil, I was shocked to see it at full!

So then on Monday I changed my oil, got some High Mileage 5w30 Castrol in there. Reason for High Mileage is because they didn't have the normal 5w30 at Wal-Mart.

I also bumped up my timing to 19*, I'm already running 93 octane gas so might as well make the best of it....

The oil light seems to come on when the car is standing still, when I start driving it goes away. Whats funny is, the light softly starts coming on then almost lights up all the way, then goes away and does the same thing until I start driving.

Another thing I started noticing is that there is a little clatter starting to happen when I start the car, so the TCT could be going bad, I hope not because it was replaced this summer....

If I open the Oil cap while the engine is running, not as much oil is being shot out as it used to before...

Could my oil feeder in the back of the engine be going back, or could I have possibly damaged it when I was installing the Knock Sensor?

Some pictures of the area around the oil feeder, as you can see it's pretty oily, so I think the oil has been leaking out someplace around there in the past, thus solving the mystery of the engine stealing oil...

Any dents in the oil pan? Best thing you can do is get an oil pressure gauge, just so you can see what's going on.

Your sludge issues may be catching up with you. SR20 has pretty narrow oil passages. If the light comes on give it a tiny bit of gas and hold it at ~1500 to see if it goes off. Sometimes that sensor comes loose and reads bad but otherwise that light means "pull over and kiss your engine goodbye".

Nope no dents... I did find that one of the oil pan screws is missing...

This could be because the oil pressure is low?

I believe giving it gas makes it go away...

I'm thinking I hit the sensor when I was installing the knock sensor... I don't want to go under the car while its 20* outside again

Your oil pressure is naturally the lowest at idle, and rises with engine speed. The crank powers the oil pump- the faster it spins, the higher the pressure.



I agree. The chances of it being a sensor issue on a car that is seriously sludged is pretty slim. It seems the sludge monster is on it's last leg.

Well she lasted this long... the only things that concern me is I have to make a 260 mile work trip tomorrow. And it's too darn cold to do an engine swap

She will make it. Just remember when you start hearing that slight ticking around 3k, you wont have more then a few months left. My buddies sr20 lasted almost a year before it got so bad he junked it for a ve.

My guess is it will probably get you out of the winter, but not much longer then that.

Results May Very

Gl friend.


Dudeman

Thanks for the information Dudeman

Now define ticking at 3k RPM? Or is this something that I know will be there when it starts being there?

I am up for a new engine, but I regained hope in this engine when I was able to get my oil not to become pitch black after 50 miles

Now could this be related to me advancing the timing?

I believe the ticking they're referring to is rod knock, which trust me, you'll notice. It's one of those things where when you accelerate, you're like "wtf is that?!?", but it disappears before you shift again so you don't worry too much. Irony is that it's the noise of death. I drove 3k miles with rod knock before shooting it through the block on the freeway.