Timing chain/oil pump housing question

[tb3]

Sheesh! Nothing worse than having to fix previous shoddy maintance on a turbobuick. A week ago I decided to go after my final oil leak, the oil pump gasket. Upon removal, I came across the only upgrade on the car I've found so far. It has a upgraded oil pump kit with the spacer and larger gears. Which is all good of course, but they obviosly neglected to check the end clearance as I've got some pretty good gouging from the gears wore into my oil pump cover. Also, whoever dips--t installed it, overtorqued the 6 oil pump bolts bigtime. 3 of them are completely stripped out. Trying to fill and rethread with a tap while the cover is installed is pretty much out of the question. I'm goin to have to pull the whole timing cover. Would anybody know off hand if the cover is the same part # as the 86/87's? I will check when I get mine off, but if these are available new, then I may just go ahead and buy one vs repairing it. And anybody know if these are available new? It may be another week or 2 before I have a chance to pull it.

 

[Jerryl]

Sheesh! Nothing worse than having to fix previous shoddy maintance on a turbobuick. A week ago I decided to go after my final oil leak, the oil pump gasket. Upon removal, I came across the only upgrade on the car I've found so far. It has a upgraded oil pump kit with the spacer and larger gears. Which is all good of course, but they obviosly neglected to check the end clearance as I've got some pretty good gouging from the gears wore into my oil pump cover. Also, whoever dips--t installed it, overtorqued the 6 oil pump bolts bigtime. 3 of them are completely stripped out. Trying to fill and rethread with a tap while the cover is installed is pretty much out of the question. I'm goin to have to pull the whole timing cover. Would anybody know off hand if the cover is the same part # as the 86/87's? I will check when I get mine off, but if these are available new, then I may just go ahead and buy one vs repairing it. And anybody know if these are available new? It may be another week or 2 before I have a chance to pull it.

Cover is different. The difference is in the 14 vs 20 bolt block. All aftermarket covers will fit.
FT, Johnperformance or TAperformance has the cover.
While you are at it, verify the cam gears/chain and replace the cam button with a "roller bearing" type.
Be sure to ceck for cam sensor alignment and blue print the holes/cavities. There is a complete and GREAT write-up on this.

Here is a thread on some basic questions.
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/general-turbo-buick-tech/169264-oil-pump-help.html

Edit;
There are some reports of defective castings (Read Leaking), so verify EVERYTHING and question everything before you button it all up.

 

[forcefed3.8's]

Get rid of the high volume oil pump, it is not needed, and will kill your cam sensor.

 

[tb3]

Thanks Jerryl, Thats not a bad price for a new housing with deeper oil pump included. I'll do the cam button too. thats only 22 bucks. As long as my chain doesn't have slop in it then I'm going to leave it. Its a shame not to put in a good cam when its all apart like that but I'd hate to put one in without doing any headwork.

I couldn't find where you where talking about the leaking. I was going to buy from johnsperformance. Should I talk to them before they ship so they can verify anything with the casting?

I had spent some time with the dremel cleaning up quite a bit of slag left over in the oil pump from the casting. I had also drilled a .060 hole in the idler gear. I was looking forward to some increased oil flow and pressure. All that work for nothing.

 

[tb3]

Definetly going to get rid of it now. How does it kill the cam sensor?

 

[Jerryl]

Get rid of the high volume oil pump, it is not needed, and will kill your cam sensor.

Correct. The HV pump is NOT needed.
Can you tell us where to get a cover with a std pump?

Regarding the HV pump. Here some actual data. Note some of the votes.
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/general-turbo-buick-tech/192997-help-solve-myth.html?highlight=myth

 

[Jerryl]

Definetly going to get rid of it now. How does it kill the cam sensor?

"Rumor has it", Increased load and/or misalignment.
It also "robs" some HP. But hey, my car is a DD and when you sit in 100 deg heat with the AC on, HP does not matter, longevity does.

I run one, without any issues. I had the oil passages in the block drilled. Run 5w30 or 0W30 oil. Make sure your car is warm before you get on it. I wait untill a max of about 35 psi @ idle. Hot idle I see 20. I must be getting good volume to cool the bearings, since the pressure is about where most run it at. :biggrin:

If everything is lined up correctly, the HV pump should not have any issues. You can run the clearance between the gears and pump cover at 0.0025 instead of the recommended 0.0015 -0.002.

If you can find a std. cover, you will be fine if set-up correctly. If you can't, what are the options?

 

[mweber]

ATP makes one without the HV pump. Part number 103005. You can get it from Rockauto.com for $99.79. I used one of these years ago, it was also much cheaper then.

Mike

 

[fritz]

HV pump problems???

I just put in a melling HV oil pump at a suggestion from John at ESP prod. He said been useing them for years on turbo buicks...NEVER a problem. So is this anti HV position just a assumption that someone started. OR does anyone actually have any real bad experience with it? By the way, I called Schnieder Racing cams (which I also just put in) & they said that it would be no prob with their cam
Just trying to separate the facts from the assumptions.

 

[tb3]

I agree with jerryl, If everything is lined up correctly, then I don't see why anyone would have any issues with a HV pump. And my opinon is that high volume and good flow dealing with oil in our cars is a good thing of course. According to a lot of experienced people's opinions in those threads Jerryl posted, The hv kit just isn't needed if everything is in good order. Climate could have a factor too I would think. I am just going to buy a new cover and pump and forget about the hv kit. I've added a cooler and I'm running the bigger oil filter, and I'm going to just go with that for now. I ordered my guages from summit today, so I'll be able to chime in with my results when alls said and done.
thanks to everybody who's posted on this. I've been really on a downer about it. All I've got left to do before I start tuning this thing is order up a chip from turbotweak. But now thats going to be pushed back awhile. :frown: just not enough time in the day

 

[Jerryl]

I agree with jerryl, If everything is lined up correctly, then I don't see why anyone would have any issues with a HV pump. And my opinon is that high volume and good flow dealing with oil in our cars is a good thing of course. According to a lot of experienced people's opinions in those threads Jerryl posted, The hv kit just isn't needed if everything is in good order. Climate could have a factor too I would think. I am just going to buy a new cover and pump and forget about the hv kit. I've added a cooler and I'm running the bigger oil filter, and I'm going to just go with that for now. I ordered my guages from summit today, so I'll be able to chime in with my results when alls said and done.
thanks to everybody who's posted on this. I've been really on a downer about it. ..........

TB2, You will be fine.
It just is a hard decision and I posted the thread AFTER installing mine, because of the the "rumor has it". With the oil cooler, there should be no issues with a stock pump.

This oil pump subject can be a downer because we all know how critical this is on these motors (kinda like flat tappet cams). Some of us have learned the hard way.

 

[tb3]

Maybe I should clarify, lol, And since I'm killing some time at work, I'll get a bit personal for the hell of it. Making the decsion about what to go with isn't the bummer in the situation for me. I just got through doing a ton of work on the front end with the fbod rad and some other things, my time with my "baby" is very limited of late. Now i've got to tear the front end of the engine off to fix this. :frown: Yesterday I measured the end clearance and put the put the pump back on and just ran some wider thread spacing screws with some sleeve retainer loctite on them into the 3 holes that where stripped. I drove the car to work sinc it was nice weather and all is fine, no leaks (yet). But I know its pretty stupid to gamble with your oil system like that. The only way to fix this is the correct way. This was actually pretty funny from someone elses point of view, a friend of mine stopped by at work to keep me company for awhile and I was complaining about all my personal life frustrations while I was looking at my engine. so she grabbed my cell phone and took a picture right as I was in "mid anguish pose" (I'll post it) and said, "here, this is how retarded your acting", and shes right. but oh well.... what can you do? :smile:

 

[Jerryl]

Two things ........ :biggrin:

1. That is a pretty NICE quality picture from a cell phone
2. The picture should be in the next calendar!


Edit:
One more ........... 3. THAT is a garage! LOL!

 

[tb3]

lol, the phone is the sony ericson that just came out (Cingular) It has a 2.0 pixel, but there are ones better than that out.

and my ugly mug doesn't need to be in ANY calendar

Heres a more normal pic of me from same night, and a nice overhead shot of the gn.