Oil pressure 71 challenger RT

[Ralph]

I have a 1971 challenger RT -383 with mild cam - bought the car about 1 1/2 years ago.

Always leaking oil around the oil pan, had a mechanic put in the metal windage tray with the two gaskets and next season leaking again.

The oil pressure upon startup reads 80 psi on a new sunpro oil guage, and driving about 76 psi. Seems like alot of pressure for a standard build engine which was 5000 miles ago by previous owner. It has the standard oil pan.
The book states pressure should be around 45 psi so this could be a high volume pump that he put in.
Do you think this adds to the oil leak issue and if so should I replace the oil pump with a standard unit.
Any advice would be helpful
Thanks Ralph

 

[340challconvert]

80 psi at start up is not bad, contingent upon the oil weight you are using.
The 383's that I have owned were about 25 psi at idle after warm up and 60-65 psi at highway speed.
General rule: about 10 pounds per 1000 RPM

 

[704406]

Your oil pressure reading is fine, quite normal for a fresh engine.
It's possible that the previous owner installed part # P4286571 a HEMI oil pressure relief spring, a very common addition to a B or RB engine rebuild.
A high volume oil pump has nothing to do with higher oil pressure, it just delivers more oil volume.
My 440 has 64000 miles on it, I run 10-40 Joe Gibbs hot rod oil, and the oil pressure is 65-70 at 3300 rpm on the highway
I don't think it has anything to do with your oil leak.

 

[Ralph]

Thanks to all

 

[i_taz]

When I put on a new replacement pan I used the rubber coated fiber instead of cork w some permatex and only had a small leak around a couple bolts since. If it's a stock '402' pan you can fanegle it off if you want to change them yourself.

 

[340challconvert]

When I put on a new replacement pan I used the rubber coated fiber instead of cork w some permatex and only had a small leak around a couple bolts since. If it's a stock '402' pan you can fanegle it off if you want to change them yourself.

Great idea with the rubber coated fiber gaskets.
When I worked as a mechanic years ago, I hated scraping the old gasket cement and cork gaskets. Pain to clean up and they always leaked.

 

[aussiemark]

The problem with cork gasket is because they are thick and compress a lot when you tighten the bolts the flange bends around the bolt holes and a leak is certain and if you use silastic it acts like a lubricant allowing the cork to squeeze out of the join entirely. Toyota have been using silastic with no gasket at all on their sumps for ages and they rarely leak I may try and use just the end rubbers and a bead of silastic along the edges on the next engine I do as an experiment.

 

[i_taz]

Especially using 2 of them even if the windage tray lip is in btwn them. If you want the rubber coated buy them now because FelPro is discontinuing them in favor of cork. Cork isn't evil if designed right. My 5.0 H.O. had small metal discs in the valve cover gaskets to prevent squishing it.

BTW.... no rubber ends on big blocks... just one piece gasket all around although your idea is commonly suggested on small blocks but you can easily get the 'crush' proof gaskets for them. That's what the rubber/fiber is referred to sometimes...