No oil to head after rebuild

[tim123]

It is a d16z6, with a rebuilt bottom end. The work was done professionally from a reputable shop. Has eagle rods, srp pistons, full arp hardware. new bearings, balanced/polished crank. It currently has a A6 oil pan on it.

The A6 oil pan I believe sits alittle deaper. Now the oil pickup is the stock z6 pickup, with the stock z6 dipstick, so it should take alittle more oil then normal, but as long as the dip stick reads good, then the oil pickup should be able to get oil?

We had two oil pumps laying around from two different z6 motors. My friends ran extremely strong and had no problems, we had them mixed up so we are not sure which one is which, the other z6 pump was on the motor.
We put the smoothest feeling oil pump on the motor.
We also replaced all seals, have everything at proper torque specs, and used rtv sealant where our service manual said to just to do everything like said. Also new headgasket.

We took off the oil cap on the valve cover, no oil, but you could kinda see like smoke/steam? we took the valve cover off completely and no smoke/steam looking shit, there was no oil circulation at the head at all except very minor towards the #1 piston. There is four holes it looks like in each corner of the head, I guess where oil flows? They are all dry except that one corner.

I want to do a pressure check at the back of the block like the manual says tomorrow, but its obvious there is shit for oil pressure unless there could be a crazy clogging going on? The only gauge I have is one that reads up to 3000 psi, and all my other ones at work are even higher so I may have to go and buy one I suppose.

I'm wondering if there is a way to pinpoint the problem, I was looking for a flow chart or something but no luck. I was going to drain the oil today, drop the oil pan, take off timing belt, pull the oil pump, and swap it with the other oil pump. but i dont know if this is neccessary anymore.

I posted this on honda-tech and was told that i just need to prime the oil pump, and i can do this easily by taking off the oil filter and cranking it some and oil should start coming out of the filter area. Anyone else have a similar problem or know that this is all i should need to do?

Sorry this post is alittle long, I hope I have enough info in it. We are anxious to solve all of our problems so we can break the motor in and get it to work and start on the turbo install.

 

[tim123]

You can also just take out the ECU fuse in the under-hood fuse box and crank the motor until the oil light goes out.

thats not going to do to much in getting the oil to the head though

 

[Taco15]

i'm gussing oil pickup is to low to the pan? not picking up enough oil. take the pan off and see how it looks.

 

[Z6CRX]

if its too low, would that mean its just sitting more in the oil? or do you mean the oil pickup itself isnt going down far enough.

I added in 1 quart of oil extra, and I still am not getting nothing. I took the plug out of the oil pump, and its not even picking up oil to pump it out of the plug, even after I "prime" it.

I'm dropping the oilpan & pump and checking out. I am going to measure the distance from where the oil pickup bolts to the block/girdle or whatever, to the bottom of the pickup tube.
Then I'm going to measure the depth of the oil pan itself to get how much room is between the bottom of the oil pickup and the bottom of the pan.
After I do that I am removing TBelt and oil pump and swaping it with a new one. I used RTV sealant where I was supposed to, and that ORing on the pump is there, I put rtv on the ring alittle just to be safe.

 

[Taco15]

yes. how far is the bottom of the pickup to pan. Its like a fan. It cant blow unless there is air behind it. the more you expose the back to more it can blow and viseversa. I say this on the Boyd hot rod show once. the were not getting ANY oil pressure. When they too the pan off it was only centimeters if not an inch from the bottom of the oil pan.

try this. take the oil pan off and bend the oil pick up in the upward position. see what happens

 

[Z6CRX]

herers pics of oil pan dropped.

I am getting about a oil pan depth of 6", its hard to tell by the last picture its angled, so it make it look like its more.
I am getting a oul pickup of about 5 1/4" from the header side of block to edge of pickup and almost a perfect 6" on the intake manifold side.
It looks like the oilpickup site angled with the bottom of the oil pan.
So on the one side of the oil pickup I have like almost contact to the pan, on the other side of the pickup almost a 3/4" gap maybe? Wierd or maybe I am just crazy from being under the car all day and all.

I put 4 quarts into the oilpan outside of the car, and with the measurements the oil pickup should be way into the oil level.

 

[Z6CRX]

I am taking a old cup outside and filling it with oil. I am gona submerge the oil pickup into the cup and hand crank it and see if it will pull anything up. Crazy idea but I wana see what happens.

 

[Z6CRX]

Well that didnt work, it did nothing at all. I am pulling the pump and replacing it with one I know has worked before.

 

[Z6CRX]

Ok, I have swapped out the oil pump with a known good one. We also manually fed oil into the oil pump and then went ahead and primed it how people suggested by cranking with no plugs.

I still don't see oil to the head, but should we start the motor up? Is it not running high enough RPMs from the starter to really get the pressure up top?

When I swapped oil pumps, I put the other oil pump + pickup on the oil pan outside of the car, it fits in there 100% with about 1/4 or 1/8" of room to the bottom of the pan.

The oil pickup was clean and oil would flow through it fine when dumping oil in it outside of the car.

Any suggestions, should we give it a go and try to start it for a few seconds so its at like 1k rpm and see if it starts fully puming it?

 

[Taco15]

well if thats what the new pump sits at then i guess it goes there. I never really measured the depth of the pickup but i just assume it cant be too close to the pan. Try bending up if possible without kinking the tube. Other than that i guess swap you oil pump and see if that works. Its got to be one of those unless theres and electrical failure that could cause this

 

[Z6CRX]

Ok we have oil to the head finally.
We swapped pumps, primed it, then cranked it over and over with the plugs out. We never saw oil get to the head and we searched and found a post about a guy who cranked his for 4 minutes total, with breaks inbetween of course, and also never got pressure up. So he started it up and it was fine.
So we said screw it and started it up, valve cover off. Oil was shooting out onto the intake manifold so we were good.

The only problem is the oil light will not go off now.

We know oil is up there now, I can see it shooting everywhere around with the oil cap off at idle. And everything is oiled up in the head nicely coated.

Any ideas on the oil light still being on?

and +rep points for everyone taking the time with ideas to help!