I'm not getting any oil to the head. The engine ran just fine, didn't have any oil pressure problems when it was driven to my garage. Pulled the engine out.

Pulled the valve cover off, and the upper timing cover. replaced the upper timing chain tensioner and removed the guides. Used copper gasket maker on the upper timing cover, and the valve cover.

Dropped the engine into the new chassis. Started right up, but the head sounds terrible.
Pull the valve cover off, no where near enough oil. Even started the engine with the cover off and the only oil getting to the head is coming from the timing chain.

What I've done thus far:
- Pulled the pan off to make sure there was no gunk on the pick up. It was clean. Used a flashlight and you can see the cylinder walls are well oiled and the underside of the pistons have oil on them.

-replaced the oil filter thinking the filter was clogged. no change. Turned the engine over a few times with the starter with the oil filter off and plenty of oil comes gushing out.

- ran a bottle of automatic tranny fluid for 15 minutes. changed the oil, then ran two bottles of sea foam in the oil for 20 minutes thinking there might be a passageway gunked up. No change.

- said fuck it and drove it around for about 2 miles. still no change.

It drives really well. Starts up easy. If you were deaf, you would think this was a really great car.

I'm out of ideas. I don't have any way to measure the oil pressure, but from what I can tell, the pressure isn't the problem. The oil just isn't getting to the head.
I need some ideas. Good ideas. Hell, even bad ideas.

 

found this on another forum while I was searching around
Is the guy that posted that a retard, or is he onto something? I don't know what o rings or tensioner gasket he is referencing.

 

just spend about four hours trying various mind tricks on it. jedi mind control. Vulcan mind melt. even did that stare my father used to give me when I was in trouble and alas, still no change.
I live a few blocks away from an elementary school. I'm gonna go nab some virgins and sacrifice them in various ways. I was gonna try cutting the beating heart out of one laid across the engine bay. Gonna pour blood from another in the crankcase. another in the fuel tank. another through the air intake. testing for oil pressure in between each one so I know which one did the trick.
any other suggestions?

 

if none of those work, then I am going to start calling around to the different churches in the area and get a few priests or rabis or preachers or whatever to come do an exorcism on this thing.

after that, I don't have any other ideas

 

Just had the identical problem on an SR and trying to figure it out now, I'll let you know if I figure something out

 

what are you tried thus far?

what was the start of your oil problems?

 

Well it should be obvious that it's related to the work you did when the motor was moving chassis.

The front cover does have a few o-rings, but it doesn't sound like you removed that part. The upper cover has no o-rings to be concerned with.

What I think might be happening is that the work you did with the tensioner is causing a leak. A big enough leak would divert all the pressure from the head. Think of a broken sprinkler gushing water, leaving the rest of them dribbling due to low pressure. Check that. In fact, if the head has little to no pressure, you might just run it without the valve cover and look down the upper cover. This might give you an oily shirt / engine bay, though.

 

I would like to think it is something that I did so I could go back and fix it.

I have run it with the valve cover off, the only oil moving around was the little bit coming off of the chain.
Didn't see anything that was crazy out of place when I was looking around while it was running.

At this point, I'm not sure what to even look for. Everything "seems" fine.

the only work I did was took the valve cover off. took the upper timing cover off. removed old tensioner. bolted on new tensioner, copper rtv the upper cover all the way around. bolted it back on. rtv valve cover, bolted it back on.

 

That's what I'm saying. Double check the new tensioner install. Maybe it's not flush to the head and it's drop oil straight down where you can't see it.

 

here's a funny question...
would the different style tensioner make a difference?
I know this is an older s13. The tensioner I I put in was the newer style/s14 style. bolts up the same but it looks different. Would that cause a problem?
I'm gonna go take pictures of the way it looks and try to get the two side by side so you know what I'm talking about...