FYI: Where to plumb oil pressure and temperature gauges.

You may already know this, but removing those round plugs with the Allen key sockets in them just under the covers on each end of the engine gives access to the main oil gallery. I pulled one off this weeked, and oil came out. Pretty easy mod to drill and tap for a pressure gauge or temperature gauge. I wouldn't put too big of a temperature gauge bulb in there though, so as not to starve the outer main bearing oil feeds, or con rod feeds (probably not a likely scenario).

 

Yes it would be easy, no drilling or tapping required. The down side is the location and the size of currently available pressure senders. Bad location for a 3 inch gizmo to be hanging out of the side of the motor. If your handy and still want to pull it off, I can recommend a better location up on the head at the end of the cam galleries, where you would get the pressure from the end of the system, not the beginning (as would be the case using the port you pointed out, crankshaft journal gallery). I would want to know if the pressure is ok up in the head more so than the bottom end which would be kind of a moot point if your head is ok. You would still have this thing sticking out from the side of your motor (just begging to be smacked or fiddled with), but it would be a more practical location. As for temperature, get hooked up with the head temperature sensing setup from a VW beatle (VDO has them for about $75). They slip under a sparkplug and give you real-time head temps. Oil temperature is nice to have and a dual sender can be had from the same source mentioned above, just need to add an additional gauge and wires. That said, I'm still trying to plan out the very suggestion you made (for at least the last 10 years) and have yet to come up with a viable solution that wasn't as much a liability as it was useful. I hope we might be able to provide that answer, I'm fresh out of ideas by myself.

 

No sender required Robert. It's just a simple backmount pressure gauge that reads directly via some 1/8" copper tubing. A 90 degree compression fitting in that plug and you're good to go.

 

I'm not fond of hard plumbing, leaks too much in my experience (I've never had to install it, all my stuff came to me with it in place, usually improperly installed to begin with, new ferrules are a must each and every time!). I like electrical as the wiring is easily routed where you need it and doesn't have the potential to blow oil inside your car! Or anything else your riding in. I agree the direct route would work in this instance, I'm just a creature of habit, forgive me. The hard line could be set up to eliminate the gadget hanging off the head too, good point. I'm just thinking inside the box here, my bust. If you do it, please document it with photos and post them, I'd like to see how clean an install you can pull off. Thanks.

 

I was wondering about this location? I see a lot of gsxr1100's using this location for oil feeds for turbo builds. I wonder if this cold be done on ours as well? If it's threaded, then you could use a 90° adapter "an" fitting to run a oil line to feed the turbo? Could this affect the internals with pressure? Isaacson06 has tapped an oil port just to the right of the oil filter, but I think this might be a easier way to go. There might not have to be any drilling or tapping involved.

 

Can someone please confirm this is possible?

 

ANYTHING is possible; whether it's effective or might have unforeseen negative consequences is another story.

Those plugs on an XJ are on the ends of the main oil gallery. You'd have to take a close look at the lubrication schematic (there is one in the factory service manual) and decide if you're going to be gambling with main bearing oil pressure.

 

What about the 82-83 650 turbo? How is the oil feed supplied on those?

Ghost