Hi all,

I had low oil pressure in my EL XR6 engine and even lower oil pressure when the engine gets to operating temperature also when left for more than a few hours engine has excessive head noise for up to 10 - 15 seconds until oil pressure gets to head? Oil levels are good. It started making what I think was timing chain noises (rattle on deceleration and a tiny bit noisy on idle)

I had my old EB block in the shed so i stripped its intake and gave it the BBM intake, took off old EB harmonic balancer and water pump and stuff so could run all EL gear (still had EB head)

I didnt hook up a knock sensor as there is no thread on the EB block.
Q: can I use a tap and mount the knock sensor?
Q: will this fix my pinging?

it was running without the knock sensor but it pings when free revving and under load.
I retard the timing to the point that it is not pinging and it has a bit of a miss on my low end revs (below 2700 - runs better above this) compared to when it pings it has a significant power loss.

I Have removed the EB engine now and was looking at it and found a vacuum hose that I don’t recall connecting from the center of the BBM intake (next to the sensor, the smaller hose – I couldn’t hear it) would this have caused a miss?

I have put a new oil pump into the tickford motor but haven’t run it yet. If replacing oil pump can fix my problems I will put the original engine back in.

Q: Would a faulty oil pump cause oil to drain from head and take a while to pump it back?
Q: I have inspected the chain from the sump and rocker cover and it looks undamaged and does not have more than 2mm movement. Could my chain noise be caused from low oil pressure to the tensioner?

Unfortunatly bearing clearance is the main issue with low oil pressure..
There are sooo many latter model motors for under $600 it's hardly worthwhile fixing an old engine...

im not going to have $600 atm.

will tapping a knock sensor into the eb block be likely to stop it from pinging?

What you can probably hear is bearing knock not pinging .

cheers