c5freedom

Hello everyone, this is my first post.
I live in a mountainous place, so I go for some twisty rides all the time with the Corvette. And I push it.
Yesterday I was doing this as usual, and on a tight, downward, left curve with hard braking I got the low pressure warning for like less than a second. I almost had a heart attack really.
The car seems fine, I went to check the oil and it wasn't completely full. The car does like to consume oil (especially when pushing it) but I just didn't check this time before going for a ride. I stopped, open the hood, no strange noises.
I babied it until a gas station, bought some oil, added it until it was very much full and a little more. And let it cool down so I could hear more of a cold(ish) noise. Still no weird noises.
Then I went back to the mountain, as I had to go back through it to go home.
And I pushed it again (basically I wanted to know the fate of the engine, and I guess, if its doomed it should make itself evident now.
So I drove it as I usually do in this rides, checking always the oil pressure. This means doing high revs, shifting close, or in the red line. Downshifting and all.
Engine seems fine, as before.
Also compared the pressure to before the incident, and it seems similar to before (30 psi at hot idle, minimum 20 psi after a really hard drive with oil temperatures close to 135 C (270F?). Going up to between 60 and 70 on higher revs.
I went home, highway for some hours. Parked it, still havent started again, scared to hear how it sounds cold.

I really dont know how to assess any damage that could have been done, in the next couple of days I want to go straight to change the oil and see how it looks like, I will open the filter and inspect that as well. Here I couldnt find any oil analysis companies I could send the oil to, but I will store some just in case I do.

I think the revs when the light came up where between 2 and 3k but not sure.

Engine has 100k miles.

Anyone had any experience with some slight oil starvation in an LS1? Well I dont know how slight it was as I dont know whats the actual refresh rate of the oil pressure sensor.
Any tips you can give me to test the engine, and know what to expect?

Thanks a lot everyone

jim993

Yours is the first post I have seen regarding LS low oil pressure in turns.

How low was the oil level?

My 2001 has 119,000 miles, 26 days of road course track days and roughly 7,500 hard turns on it and the same number of full throttle upshifts from 2nd to 3rd (A4 trans) and I have never seen a low oil pressure warning -- but I run FULL PLUS 1/2 quart on track.

The entry for Turn 2 at Laguna Seca is downhill braking (for me) from 110 to about 35. I have been through that turn about 250 times- no low pressure warning.

The batwing oil pan design has cast in traps to keep oil close to the oil pump pickup in hard turns or deceleration/ acceleration -- but some still install a pressurized system to back up for pressure loss in accelerated conditions.

C5MSG2004Vert

If you didn't hear it knocking or lifter clattering probably no damage occurred since the oil pressure may not have been at 0. How many quarts of oil did you add?

Dads2kconvertible

Welcome to the forum.
Which car do you have?

hungryhippo

How low was the oil? These engines are more prone to oil starvation on high g left turns. Sounds like you drive it pretty hard with those oil temps. I would keep the oil overfilled by half a quart and back off a little when the temps hit over 250f. Oil gets really thin when hot.

acroy

^^ I agree with above. Very unlikely to have damage from momentary low pressure, especially not under throttle. Full + 0.5-1 quart and watch the oil temp, consider an additional cooler if needed. Make sure your existing radiator etc is nice and clean.

c5freedom

Thanks everyone for the answers. It gives me somewhat of a peace of mind. Today I started it death cold, no weird noises. Will do an oil change later this week and check for anything weird in then oil/filter.

I added about a quart to get it to top of the dipstick operating range.

it was exactly that unfortunately, a hard breaking left downhill curve.

Generally I push it hard, and once I reach 270f oil temperature I let it cool down, in this case it was second to last curve of the mountain pass so I was just about to finish.

Wonder if I should get some oil cooler, but don’t want to mess that much with the oil system.

My car is a 2000 targa, 6spd, with z51 package. Bought it a couple of years ago, car was imported from then US one year after it was bought. I’m putting a lot of miles to it, but it’s just a wonderful machine and it’s just amazing to drive in the mountains. I really love the car, everything works, I really have no problems, except the oil consumption but it seems it’s not out of the ordinary for these cars.
I’ll try to add a catch can to see if it’s the pcv system. Or it might be those oil rings that weren’t great in the early LS1s?