Increased PSI resulting in engine working harder? Discovered Dent in oil pan

[add|ct]

Well, for rolling resistance improvement I just increased my PSI to 40 on my front and 36 on my rear tires(manual calls for 35/32; max allowed on current tires 44/36)...but I didn't like the strain on the engine. Just those 4/5 PSI added on each the front/rear respectively, it had the engine shimmering when under full load(VTEC) w/ AC a little earlier. It definitely felt like the engine was working harder anyway.

So, with the amount of miles on the car and not being on a full synthetic yet, I'm just not sure if I want to do higher PSI until I go full-syn for at least 1 oil change interval if its going to cause my engine to work this hard.

Also, my oil pan has a relatively small dent about 2-3 inches from the front bottom lip on the oil pan leading towards the back/drain plug. I could take a pic later. Previous owner probably ran over something. Anyways, it looks like it has a small scar about 1-2 inches in the center of this 'dent'(perhaps a small 1/2 inch of pan is raised upwards toward engine block). Since its not level across this may be causing some of the seepage I'm having of oil, or not. I sorta want to replace the entire oil pan now. The scar in the center of the dent is bare metal, no longer the black coating.

Thoughts on PSI and increased engine wear? Sure, it wouldn't hurt if no VTEC or full-engine load, but I want to be able to drive the car hard at times if I need to without second thoughts of my engine wearing faster.