Startup oil pressure time lag

Guys,

We have a 451 KB / Brad 5 / Whipple and on initial start up it takes forever to get gauge oil pressure up to speed. 150 lbs at cold idle, but the time seems very long (1/2 minute or more) at 1800 rpm idle. 70 weight oil with a two line input from a wet sump, pressure taken from side oil galley. Using ultra gel lube on pushrod cups for initial lube.
No bearing problems so far but we have not run this at full bore for a 1/4 mile yet.
We also have another car with a 526 KB Littlefield, and on the first startup ever it also took about 1/2 minute to get the same 150 lbs at cold idle.
Is this normal? We have a 3 qt accusump and 13 qts in dragster pan with an outboard oil filter with various lines etc.
Both engins are about the same setup.
Normally we would pull the mag and pump up oil pressure to fill the accusump before going to the track. But even with the accusunp full, when we release the pressure it drops in seconds to almost 0 lbs pressure.
Bearing clearances are about .004 rods and .005 mains.
Any comments would really be appreciated.

Thanks,
Wilko Brothers

 

i always spin mine over till the guage starts to move then i will start it. does it after the motors warm and if it cold it takes awhile for the 70wt to pump up if cold out warm the pan and pump before you start it

 

that seems like a long time to me with no oil pressure. we run a 526 Hemi with a wet sump, Black billet pump, and 60wt. oil. our car isn't running for 5 seconds and we have 180 pounds. you might try to heat the oil before you start it, especially with that 70wt. we run an Olsen dragster pan on our car, but we run 16 quarts....you might want to add a few to yours. hope this helps
Darren

 

13 plus 3 in the accusump definetly doesn't sound like enough oil, even if it doesn't solve the slow oil pressure problem I would add 2 or 3 more to prevent future issues.

What kind of pump are you running? A few years back when we still ran the wet sump deal in our dragster we ran a cast KB pump and had similar issues, always had to prime the suction lines from the pan at the beginning of each day, it just had a hard time picking up the oil at first for some reason. Does it do it on every start up?

 

my motors are like Darren's instant oil pressure..Dave
www.myspace.com/daveloweswr

 

Same here. I have been priming mine with a cordless drill before the first start of the day. 2-3 seconds and she's got pressure on the gauge even without heating it first (I don't start it without heating it), and my shop has been running 45-55 degrees lately.

-Brian

 

my kb is doing the same thing. never did this before. fired the motor and pulled into the water, looked dn 0 pressure...whacked the throtle and 160 lbs. let the car set 2hrs, again, no pressure.

 

Had same problem with dash mounted oil pressure gauge.
It just seemed like it took a long time to rise up.
Car also has a low oil pressure warning light with an engine mounted sender set to 45 lbs. Light turned off almost instantly upon 'cranking' the engine.
(Cranking not starting). Always fire it after oil pressure was up.

This seemed odd.

So we replaced the #3 oil line to the gauge with #4 and problem solved.

Other things are bleed the air from your gauge line.
Fill the gauge line with light oil.