So, is there a good explanation for my symptoms? As the title indicates, my oil pressure gauge drops to nothing and turns red whenever I make a downhill righthand turn. If I go slow on the turn (~5mph) I see the pressure lower a bit but not drop all the way. Doesn't happen during any other turning/braking/acceleration conditions.

I've got a 3.4l pr. I recently put 5 quarts in and the dipstick reads slightly above full.

Any ideas?

Good news and bad news. I had the same problem with my car and I'm pretty sure I know exactly what the issue is. Bad news........ the oil pickup is laying in the bottom of the oil pan no longer attached to the engine.

When the engine is full of oil, it covers the pickup hole on the pump and left turns slosh it all to that side. Right turns take all the oil away from the hole dropping oil pressure to 0.

There is a way to check this fairly easily but you may waste your new 5qts of oil. Drain all the oil out of the engine and take a rubber mallet to the bottom of the oil pan. Don't dent it or wail on it but just tap firmly. If you hear a clatter that something large is sitting there not connected, that's your proof. This is what I did.

I actually drilled and tapped a small hole in the pump where the pickup slides in and put a set screw in there cause I vowed that will never happen again.

Good luck

That seams to be a reasonable explanation and a simple way to check, thanks for that. Figured it must have something to do with oil sloshing around. So I guess the oil pickup is just a pressure fit then?

Anything else I should do/check while I have the oil pan off?

I'd make sure you don't have too much metal in your pan and give it a good cleaning. You could put in a high volume oil pump while you're there if u want, so long as the engine didn't eat itself up with no oil pressure.

Yes it is press fit which I always hated so I put that set screw in

I have had this same issues a couple of times... Bad oil pressure sending unit.. I would highly suggest replacing it before pulling oil pan to find the pick up tube is where it is suppose to be..
Pick up tube could be problem but for $25-30 I'd replace sending unit first..
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87GTseries 1 3800sc (7.597 @88.53 1.579 60ft)
(series II swap in progress)
85GT Northstar/ 4t80e
Northstar Rebuild

[This message has been edited by jb1 (edited 07-29-2015).]

I didn't even need to empty the oil to do the check. Lifted it up and banged a couple times with my fist, and sure enough I can hear it rattle in there.

Sorry to hear I was right but at least it is figured out. Like I said before, I actually put a set screw in to hold the pickup on so it would never have that happen again.

Just so you know, the front motor mount must come off to get the pan out. Been there done that but that is all that has to move. I had a manual so with an auto Trans it may be harder though.

Good luck

Took me quite a while, but I finally got around to dropping the oil pan. As suspected the oil pickup tube was laying in the bottom. Fixed it up, took it for a spin and no oil pressure drops!

When looking around for instructions on pulling the pan, I came across someone who says they can do the job in 30 mins...pff yea right! The only problem I ran into was getting the starter re-engaged when I put in all back together. For some reason it required a shim (even though I didn't have one earlier). Maybe all the grim I cleaned out in there was acting as a shim