Originally Posted by ocfoilist

I just returned from a weekend trip from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe, going up the back side of Cali via the 395. Without any kind of "enthusiastic" driving, my oil temp hit 260 twice on the way up and once on the way back down. My cruise control was on most of the time and it was set to 75.

I am still not certain, however, how improper that temperature is for a car (not having monitored oil temp regularly in the past on my 350z). I wasn't flooring it nor was I excessively speeding to generate that temp, but it only happened 3 times and it dropped back down within 2-3 minutes. On the two times up to Tahoe, it occurred while going up a hill and on the way back it was on a very gradual gradient.

But what exactly does that mean for the car? I'm assuming, based on the previous posts, that these three brief bursts into 260 will not damage the car and it did not seem to affect performance. What exactly is "normal" and when do temperature spikes become a "problem" for a car? How frequently do would they have to happen and how long "should" they take to dissipate? I understand about what triggers the "limp wrist" mode, but I haven't gotten anywhere close to that. Temperatures were pushing 94 degrees on the drive and it took 8 hours. So I'm more concerned about the 240-270 range and what means to a car over its lifetime.

I intend to track this car from time to time, so I will be forced to add an oil cooler regardless. The overwhelming feedback has been that a full 20-25 minute run on the track - much less an entire day - is pretty much impossible without one. But I am also interested in what is, or should be, considered "normal" conditions off the track. Emotional opinions about Nissan knowingly releasing a sports car that overheats on the the track aside, does anyone have any engineering perspective on this?