new build, drippping oil Options

[eyesright]

Tho I've built several Army Jeeps and a Ford GTB (really cool truck, check them out on Google) this is my first VW or Porsche. I'm willing to make mistakes and learn and this site is very helpful. Thanks everybody.

So my '76 2.0 FI went back together with Hofmann heads rebuild and decked case, 9550 Raby cam kit, AA flat top pistons and cylinders, counterweighted crank from Rimco. Maybe I'll go for more performance on my next one, I just wanted a smooth, reliable driver with reasonable power.

Three of the AA cylinders were same height - less than .0005 difference - but one was .0025 tall. My machine shop said it would torque down just fine but they work on big diesels and industrial equipment. I asked him to cut it down of course.

My oil pressure is still low according to my VDO gauge, 80 cold but after warm up, about 5psi at idle and 15-20 at highway speed. That seems to be the case with 2 or 3 others on the forum too. I'll be testing with a mechanical gauge this week or next.

Oil temp runs 190 to 220F @ 75F and also @ 95F outside air temp.

My first problem to sort out was oil leaks. So I cleaned up the engine and ran it in place in the garage and found it dripping profusely from the front and the back. From the front seemed to be at the oil pressure relif valve. Then I got under it as it was running and I could see it dripping from the oil filter mount. Glad I looked to make sure before I pulled the engine and fixed the wrong thing.

The rear was engine oil. My transaxle drips a little here and there but that wasn't my main problem. I knew pretty much what my problems were and should have headed things off from the beginning. So out came the engine again.

When I first assembled the engine, somehow I had been missing the gasket for the oil filter mount and the old gasket was stuck tight. So I put a little black permatex case sealer on it and bolted it down. That didn't work obviously. I might have gotten away with it if I had used some red permatex gasket - very judiciously around the oil passages of course. Anyway, I remembered I had a partial gasket set that I picked up somewhere and sure enough I found a new gasket. Wish I had remembered that when I put the engine together! So I scraped the old gasket and used the new one. One problem solved.

When I installed the O ring from the gasket set on the flywheel I could tell it wasn't sticking out of the groove at all. Not knowing any better I installed the flywheel and of course it leaked . After reading a post here, someone pointed out that the flywheel and the oil pump O rings were the same diameter, just one is skinny and the other fat and I was concerned I had switched them.

When I took things apart last week and compared the O rings from my partial gasket set, I had installed the right O ring, the fatter of the two. And it wasn't doing any good. So I got a new O ring from my machine shop that was thicker still and it seems to be doing the trick.

The picture shows the standard O ring in the kit and the new one I bought. The outside diameter is the same even tho it doesn't appear so in the photo. ( I should have included the oil Pump O ring in the photo...) Anyway, I still don't have a good answer about the O ring business. Two gasket kits had O rings which were the wrong size? Anybody have any ideas?