CasetheCorvetteman wrote:
If the oil pump was sucking air when cold, it wouldnt suck any oil, cause itll suck up what ever is easiest. Cold oil wont be as easy to suck up as either hot oil, or crank case air.

Unseated rings wont cause this issue, and yoube be blowing a heap of smoke if they hadnt seated.

Id also think youd be seeing high coolant temps if indeed you were getting excess bore friction, and probably more so then high oil temps.

Does this think have a block heater or oil cooler? I havent seen a block heater on a Corvette, so i dont know if they run on single phase mains power or 12vdc.

What does a compression test tell you?

I've lost track of what you said the oil pressure drops to, but no matter. Number 2, "the valves get loud.", gives me a yet to be mentioned thought. My worn out Crossfire has a quiet valve train on thin oil at less than 10 psi oil pressure. It doesn't take a lot of pressure to keep hydraulic lifters happy. My 400 with the high volume oil pump with the pressure relief spring shimmed (I out smarted myself on THAT one), the one that almost never saw less than 50 psi oil pressure, would run out of oil in the pan cruising at 70 mph (3500 rpms). I'm not suggesting that your pump is pumping your pan dry at idle speeds or in "test mode", but especially since the pan has been off recently, possibly the oil pump pick up has fallen off or is sucking air. Air in the oil would explain valve train noise. The pressure would read artificially low because, unlike the oil (a liquid) the air in the system can be compressed, resulting in lower readings. Ask anesthesia about Boyles Laws of Gasoline. He knows all about compressing liquids.

I'm not saying that this HAS to be the problem, but I think it is a valid enough possibility to warrant pulling the pan. Remember, 99 and 44 one hundredths percent (99.44%) of the problems we deal with are the off shoot of the LAST problem we dealt with. The ball is in your court.

RACE ON!!!
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