Too much oil pressure

Im sure this question has been asked on here before, but i couldn't find any threads.
So, is there such a thing as too much oil pressure? At operating temperature (180°) I'm getting about 58 lbs of pressure at 30 mph and up and about 20 lbs at idle. I put in 20-50 weight oil because that's all they had at the auto parts place (valvoline "hot rod" oil)

 

Shortest possible answer: Yes

Longer answer: Rule of thumb is ten PSI per thousand RPM at full hot operating temperature.

For comparison I get plenty of OP from 5W30 in my strong 455 even on our frequent 100 degree days.

 

That's fine especially with fresh oil....it will break down some...

 

As was mentioned, it won't kill it but I'd probably try 10W40 next time. I run 5W30 in mine most of the time. This summer, I'm going to use 10W30 because that's what I could find easily.

 

Sounds good to me ....my pops 464 is 60lbs at 3k ....30 at 1100.....when at full operating temp....that's with 15-40 royal purple....have the top end off it now ...lifters...cam ... distributor gear all mint

 

Thank you all, for the replies

 

Gauging oil pressure without knowing your oil temp is borderline useless.

when I first installed a temp gauge ages ago,
I found a bunch of details with one being that nothing is carved in stone to a large degree.

In terms of my Pontiac 400 motor at the time ( with its 3” mains ) and the mineral based 10w40 I was using , unless I was buzzing around on the highway above 4000 rpm my oil temp was fine and the pressure was at 55 psi with the pump set for a 60 psi limit.

At that time once I saw the temperature get to 245 at a steady 4300 rpm I knew it was time for an oil cooler.

Before added a cooler I swapped over to a 455 which has larger 3.250” mains and I found that under the same conditions as my 400 motor that at 3800 rpm or so the 3.250” mains where making the same oil temp as the 3” mains of the 400.

once the oil cooled was stuffed in my oil temp was too cold for my liking ( 230 F ) and I had to restrict the air flow thru it some get to 230 degrees which is around what you need to boil off harmful condensation that forms in motors .

long story short I found that in my case with running a mineral based oil that once the oil temp gets to 220 degrees that for every 10 degrees rise above that you oil pressure will drop of 2 to 3 psi, and NO, having over 60 psi show up about 3000 rpm is not a problem.

that being said what can be a problem is not knowing what your average and extreme oil temp can be, this is because oil pressure itself makes heat .
If your oil temp is near the limit of what you want for a given rpm and at that rpm you have 20 more psi then you need, well then cutting back on oil pressure will drop off your oil temp.

To this day when I look back I can’t believe how much I spent in fuel cost to find out these pressure / rpm / temp relationships, but I never had any mechanical issues with my motors and the bearings / cylinder walls and piston skirts always looked like new when a tore a motor down.

what’s the name of that 10 cc song , The things we do for love?

 

Just let that oil get good and warm and flowing b4 driving too much......cold thick oil will show psi on the gauge as psi is actually just a measurement of flow resistance......but it won't be getting into areas to do its job.