Midas Cars Forum - www.midascarsforum.com

All catholic crying statue worshippers, eat your heart out! My Midas ran into some technical problems on the highway:



When we got out we noticed that my Midas was crying black tears. Don't believe me? Here's the evidence:



Pretty spooky eh? Who says cars don't have souls? Well, my Midas has!

what brought it to your attention first Hans?

Loss of oil pressure or burning oil smoke?

No it was Ed. Who was driving in front of me.... I was happily cruising, not watching my dials (also no low press light) when I smelled something. I thought it was Ed's car but it looked okay in front of me. Then he suddenly drove to the side of the road. When I got out he said I was trailing a big white cloud of smoke. Then I noticed oil everywhere and it seemed a good idea to stop the engine . By that time it had pumped out 4 litres of oil . When Ed hadn't been driving with me I suppose I would have killed the engine or at least destroyed the turbo.

sugar......thats the problem with straight cut boxes.... you wouldnt have noticed the engine sound change either as the oil level gets low like you would with quieter helical gears.

My dash comes up with the OPA (Oil Pressure Alarm) overriding the speed indicator when the pressure drops.

if you lost 4 litres, you were very lucky.

That's an interesting feature David. But can you set the alarm with a speed/oil pressure combination? The oil pressure range is from 20 psi in idle to 50/40 psi on the move (cold/warm). The oil pressure light switches on at about 10 psi I presume. If you set your alarm to 20 psi it may come on at idle. But you don't want 20 psi on the highway. I think I had 20 psi during the oi leak. So at speeds over 40 mph your alarm should be at least 30 psi and at idle 10/15 psi. Can you insert that? Else it won't save your engine.
Cheers, Hans

The alarm can be set as low or as high as you want as its all configurable in software. You can do the same for water temperature (WTA) and Fuel levels too (FLA). As to whether you can do it relating to engine revs thats not on the option list. It would be a rather clever system to do that and I see your point.

I had a situation where I had not monitored my oil level for a while though and the OPA alarm came on (so must have dropped to under 15 psi momentarily which is what I set it at) for a second due to very hard cornering. It didnt affect the engine at all and was a one off. Went straight to garage and put a litre in mind you. 15psi is probably a good warning point for tickover or at speed (if immediate notice is taken) I'd have thought.

On a side note worth mentioning is to make sure the head gasket seals well against block and head for oil pressure. Bl**dy thing always leaks after a while, dripping all over the back of the engine (towards bulkhead).

HTD