the 350 I just put together runs about 75 @ idle & pegs the 80 psi gauge when moving. this is after its warmed up. should I be worried?

You need a larger scale gauge on your oil pressure, LOL. The only downside to high oil pressure that I know of is, it's a little harder on your dist gear and pump shaft and your gasketing needs to be really good. Try PMing Wolfplace or BillK, they would know more about it that me.

Bill

If your engine sounds mechanically good.
I would say yes that pressure is too high for warm operating tempeture.
What grade of oil that you are running? You might want to drop to some type of muiltigrade oil 20w-50 or 5w-30 for example.And if the engine is broken in, Move over to a full synthetic. It normally reduce the oil pressure down, also.

i'm running straight 30 in it. thinking of switching to 10-30. thanks for the advice as always!

what oil pump you have?

melling stock replacement, with high pressure spring (mr gasket i think). wish i'd left it alone now.

if it's a standard volume it probably has a stuck bypass. the high pressure springs usually bypass about 55-60, so any over that is usually a problem with the bypass itself. Be careful when it's cold, the pressures and loads on the drive can go out of sight.

if you are not going to fix it right away I recommend you run the lightest oil you can find, I think there's 0W-30 out there.

when you changed the spring did you remove the piston? if so, any chance you put it in backwards? this would cause the problem you're getting.

I run 20w-50 Kendall in the chevelle. Typically during warmup at 2000rpm, the oil pressure is around 80 psi. this is a dynagear hi volume pump. At the end of the run when I get back on the return road and the car is idleing (1200rpm) the oil pressure light is just flickering on (set at 50psi)

once the valve is stuck shut, do they generally ever free themselves up? could i pressurize it thru the gauge port in the block and maybe free up the piston?

no, that won't work, sorry.

Check it with a mechanical gauge before you do anything radical. A bad sender or gauge could be showing a lot more pressure than is actually there.

you're right. I need to make sure I've got an accurate reading before I get too excited. thanks.

well i tested it w/ a mech. gauge this afternoon and i got 65-95 psi (idle-3500 rpm).

your bypass is not bypassing. at 95 you're in danger of collapsing or splitting the oil filter.

are you sure you've got a stock pump, not a HV?

As importantly as exploding oil filters or damaged drives, too much pressure will pump it out of the pan faster than it can drain back and cause WOT high RPM starvation. The racing engine rule of thumb is 10 psi per 1000 RPM.

after i actually drove it and got everything up to temp, the mech gauge was reading 30 at idle and 70-75 at 3000. i feel ok with that. it still is up around 90psi cold though.