Scott and John (and other interested parties),
My feeling is that one of the crank journal-to-bearing clearance was off and that the bearing was slipping around a little. This would explain the slight fluctuations in
oil pressure on day one. If the bearing found a temporarily comfortable place to sit, it would explain why the problem seemed to go away. And also why it came back when I really pushed it hard. Joe and I inspected the crank and one of the rod pairs seemed to be a little loose but I didn't want to pull the caps. I'll let CHP do that so they can be sure to find the reason for the failure.
I say "pushed it hard", but I've never driven it without the 6k rev limiter in it so it's never been subject to extreme RPMs. Even then, I rarely hit 6k as the motor seems to feel better shifting between 5200 and 5500 rpm during fast excelleration.
Apart from the fluctuation in the beginning, the
oil pressure has been really strong. It operated between 50 and 65 psi, unless it's hot and at idle which drops the pressure to 40.
I expect that Coast High will tell me exactly what went wrong due to the history that we've had with this engine. If I'm not satisfied that they've found the reason and explained it well, I wont take the motor back.
It will be a week before I can get this thing crated and back to CHP so it may be a while before I have any news. I'll keep everyone up to date.
As I said before, I'm confident that CHP will make this right.
Charmer