Debris can screw with any hydraulic relief valve.

My dipstick handle plastic melted and bits of molten plastic went down the dipstick tube into the oil. Small bits of plastic held my relief open. My lesson was to heatshield all the things. I run a rubber cap on the dipstick tube on the track and only put the dipstick in to check the oil now.

I've seen stock pumps stick the relief valve open too, but that won't stop you from continuing to bash a product you have no experience with.

A couple of years ago a local guy put his car on the trailer after a track day running fine. Then started it up to take it off the trailer and had zero oil pressure. Oil pump valve plunger was stuck. 1.6 lost all oil pressure while on trailer - Spec Miata Garage - Mazda Racers

I hope he gets his car fixed and back on the road, and uses whatever oil pump you recommend he runs.

Turns out the pickup tube bolts backed out. I guess the machine shop I used didn't torque them correctly, leading to some carnage in the oil pan.

Surprisingly this didn't knock, both my oem gauge and stack oil pressure gauge showed good oil pressure right up until I started it after it sat for awhile. Main bearings look fine, but all the rod bearings are trash and the crank has a few score marks.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...dee14ebf87.png
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...63861d3e52.png
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...72d42e0db1.png

If that shop has ANY integrity, they pay for the damage caused by their obvious screwup.

that is a good bit of debris. sorry to hear about this. im going to guess the pump is trash too now.

Wow that's horrible damage. Make sure to replace any oil related items, such as your oil cooler, including the OE one if you're still using it.

If you ask nicely and are willing to be a little patient, Travis will R&R one of his pumps after a motor failure for a very reasonable amount of money (less than the cost of a new OEM pump).

Waiting to hear back from the machine shop. Motor's like 2 1/2 years old, probably done less than 5k miles, though so we'll see what they say.

Unfortunately the shop got sold to the previous owner's friend about a year after my engine was built...so I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'll definitely look into getting the pump r&r'd, but probably just going to throw a vvt motor in the car for now.

Looks like a complete disassembly and thorough cleaning for sure. Machining to be determined by machine shop after inspection and measurement I guess. Tough luck.

Holy crap that's bad.

I would be mad as hell at the shop that assembled that oil pickup tube. That's such a tiny thing to ruin a whole engine over.