Ok... My brat guy rebuilt me a semi fresh ea81 with an RV cam. He didn't have an extra oil pump so he took the one off of my old engine. He said it was good. Ok.. Here's my question. Cold start up ( after market electric gauge and sender) pressure is slightly above 75.. running Valvoline vr1 20-50. Driving home on the freeway I can slowly watch it drop to around 40- 43ish as the oil reaches temp. I know some ea81's oil pressure spec is 57@2500 and 43@5000. I'm not super concerned, but it would be nice to have some other input. Idle hot around 20. Haven't checked hot with shop gauge on the freeway. What's minimum hot @ 3000? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

I have worked on and built lots of EA81's. Based on my experience your pressures look fine. The owners manual for my 1983 wagon says the hot oil pressure can run close to zero on the factory gauge (which is not very accurate). I wouldn't worry about it.

Excellent! Thank you. I have another pump from the engine I took out. Might do a quick swap and see if anything changes. Your reply truly does set my mind at ease. Thank you thank you. Erik.

Seen thoughts that at op temp we often see under ten psi per thousand revs.

Australian market mostly had just the idiot light so most can have no idea , sometimes less stress

My non factory gauge liked to show zero at idle yet switch that has , what 6 psi ? trigger point, stays off.

My gauge sender died, still dead. Gauge is sometimes a toy

Edited June 26, 20205 yr by Step-a-toe

I still am looking find the wire at the back of the cluster for the oil sender in cluster. OEM gauge tests good when I ground it, but when I put OEM sender in no bueno. 

I bought the last OEM sender in US for ea81... or so my parts guy says. Still no bueno.. drives me nuts having all my gauges except oil pressure working. Cluster only has 59k.

Edited June 26, 20205 yr by Eriksund

Check the wiring connector beside the engine where that wire has a sliding joint in it (effectively). 

I had issues with my temp gauge working and not working. It was an issue at this connector. Some wiring plug pin outs differ for different years, if the engine was a swap in drop, the wire at the plug could be in a different location to its mate. 

But with ~60k on the clock, I’d doubt its had an engine change, unless there was some catastrophic issue earlier in its life. 

Cheers 

Bennie

The brat has 327k on it.. The cluster I bought on eBay.. I also wired the sender directly to the contact on the back of the cluster marked o.p... gauge is intermittent... Game over for now.. just going to run with the aftermarket unit and gauge.