Oil type and temp Questions (houston area)

Dark Sarcasm

OP - I live in Houston and my oil temps run at about 218 - 220 all day long, no matter what the temp is outside. I drive the Z pretty hard most of the time. Before you go and drop $800+ on an oil cooler setup I suggest you drive it a little more. Get the oil change to a synthetic and then see where the temps are. 220 - 230 is not a bad temp for the oil.

__________________
wax

fuct

all this has me thinking about saving several houndred and just get a larger oil pan. not a spacer, but entire pan. if the temps are ok then adding an extra quart might just be all i need. hmmm

roy'sz

im not too sure on the 220ish comment in reguards to getting the temps up or condensation builds up. It is burnt off through the heat up of the oil, but could also lean towards running a cold oil and not gettin it to "burn off." kinda partial. i wouldn't know why anyone wouldn't put synthetic in the z, if your not its definitely a poor investment.

i also agree with the tight tolerance's causing a high temp for oil. I had my car 2months and nissan goodwilled me a cooler and installed it so there is no way for me to tell if it was just tolerance or my engine ran hot from the start. either way im glad i have the cooler because that means mods in the near future

MattP725

I wouldn't really worry about this... the oil lasts 3 months max and generally gets heavier as it wears so even if water somehow enters the pan it isn't going to thin the oil too bad.

Also with the spring, the point I was trying to make was buying a 200 deg spring vs a 180 won't change anything... if you can't get to 180 where the original spring allows for full flow then a 200 will certainly not help. If you were trying to keep your oil at say 200 when it was consistently at 180 then that would be a dif story. At 160 both springs will just keep the thermostatic plate partially open.

It's simple... get a smaller cooler or block off plate. That is all that you can do to get your temps up to the proper place if you're not hitting High 100s.

Also if I ran 200-220 stock I would never have bought the cooler... I was idling at 220 and hitting 240-260 under some increased load. Never limped but didn't want to risk it. My tune took an extra hour while they let the engine cool off... not idea.

AggieDriver

Car was bought as an 09 with 25k give or take. Break in was 20k ago. And since the fires are in Bastrop and Magnolia areas and I've been out to both helping friends move horses. Sucks, but College Station isn't on fire. It would appear that reading comprehension was lacking both when you read my post and when you read about where the fires are/were.



As an update:
Tonight making the trip to Houston and back I was seeing 235-245 going down at 4-5:30 and staying right around 225-230 on the way back between 9:30 and 11. Didn't do anything stupid, just cruising in 6th, well under 100, and not on it hard at all. To me, that's a need for a cooler when it doesn't get under 220 at night on the highway.

As of yet, no one has convinced me otherwise. Changing the oil hasn't made a bit of difference as far as I can tell, as I'm still seeing the high temps.


I appreciate all the good info here.... but

Could someone please point me to a good shop that would put in an aftermarket cooler in the Houston/College Station area?

And could someone please answer me weather or not I should be putting in a sandwich plate if I may be driving this car in colder climates/the coldest days we get here? Does that depend on the size of the cooler?

roy'sz

I don't know of a good garage being that i am in cali. Take it from me, i got the kit from nissan without it and am putting it on this weekend. You will need the mocal plate. I saw on a thread here that racerwarehouse.com has the kit for under 300 with braided lines. You should definitely hit them up. Or go through z1 for the setrab cooler. rcw has trucool i think?

I knew changing the oil wouldn't help. I hoped high for that too, then found out that it was synthetic to start with and it had that much of a heat issue. Have you contacted Nissan North America about it? If you find a dealership that is gt-r certified they should be able to help you install.

wstar

It's not about thinning the oil, and water doesn't "somehow" enter the pan...

The air around you contains humidity (especially in the Houston area). When the hot engine cools off overnight, the humidity in the air condenses out on the metal surfaces inside your engine (just like the dew you see on your car windows if you park outside) and drips into the oil, adding a small amount of water to your oil every time.

You also get fuel and combustion byproducts into your oil as part of its normal operation, via blowby on the piston rings. When those mix with water in the oil, they create an acid, which in turn will eat away at oil seals and promote engine corrosion.

Getting your oil regularly hot enough to boil off the condensed water slows down that process a lot, vs never getting up to temp and letting the oil become rapidly acidic. Water boils at 212F, so generally my target for a safety margin would be to ensure you get a few minutes of 220F oil temps on the gauge to boil off condensation.

If that's as hot as you can get it (and we're still in pretty bad summer heat), it's not strictly necessary to run a cooler. Those temps are within range. If you fear you will get the temps even higher driving in some other way (running the car harder), then try it and find out. I think you'll be surprised by what factors stabilize the temps and how hard it is to reach 260 on the street.

Even if you were exclusively driving in a very hot climate, I would get the Mocal sandwich plate. As noted above, it doesn't make a ton of difference to highway oil temps. However, you shouldn't be pushing the engine on cold oil, and the plate will save you a few minutes of your 10-15 minute wait for the oil to come up to temp when you start in the morning.

Aside from the Mocal plate, you may also want to make some blockoff plates for the cooler to use during the winter on highway drives, so you're not making the whole drive at like 170F, which is just bad. Again, as said above, overcooling the oil is bad too.

__________________
7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details

Zaggeron

Lots of good info here, but, AggieDriver, if you've already made up your mind to get an oil cooler, you might be better served opening a new thread with the specific question of recommendations for a good garage in the College Station area.

__________________
2010 Platinum Graphite 370z Roadster:Touring/Sport
2013 Subaru BRZ Limited

Lug

I've heard really good things about jTran Studios for Z cars in general but haven't had any work by them myself.

JTran Studios


jTran Studios | Facebook

__________________
keep Chubbs in your pocket - Chubbs

roy'sz

ya don't neet your engine to get up to 212 to get the moisture out of the crankcase. Some people know just enough to get themselves in trouble. Do what you feel is necessary.

wstar

Are you implying that the water somehow boils off at less than 212F, and/or that 212F is an unhealthily high temperature for engine oil? Lay off the character attacks and bring some data :P

__________________
7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details

roy'sz

when you sip a cup of coffee is it boiling? NO, but it is releasing steam and that is the point my friend. Not trying to assasinate your character just simply implying that there is moisture that is burnt off well before waters boiling point. and if im not mistaken it would be from the heat source.

wstar

It's a lot more complicated than that even. True steam (water in gas form) is invisible. The "steam" you see rising from your coffee cup is steam that is already re-condensing back into water as it is cooled by the surrounding air. The degree to which water will steam off before the boiling point is also dependent on the humidity and temp of the surrounding environment.

The reason we call 212F the "boiling point" is because at standard atmospheric pressure, this temperature forces water to boil off. Any less and you're guessing at how much may have evaporated at a slow rate depending on local conditions.

I don't know the exact minimum point where you've heated the oil sufficiently to get rid of most of the water, but I think a few minutes at 220 on the gauge is a good guideline with some built in fudge factor. It's definitely past water's boiling point, and it's definitely not too hot for normal engine oil either.

It's too easy (especially in cooler weather) with an add-on oil cooler on the 370Z to make short trips (or even long highway-only trips) and never move the needle past 180. I've even seem some winter highway trips in TX where I had trouble keeping it above 160 without downshifting just to heat the oil up. A blockoff plate is a simple solution to help in those kinds of conditions.

Usually if I know my trip won't get the oil to 220, I just run in a lower gear for a while until I get there.

__________________
7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details

Dark Sarcasm

even if the water "boils off" isnt it going to condense back into water in the crackcase or valve covers? i guess some could escape thru the exhaust but more moist air is being brought in by the intake at the same time.

__________________
wax

wstar

The PCV system is what ventilates the crankcase's air. In the stock setup, the PCV draws fresh air from side hoses on your air intake tubes (past the filters, but before the throttle plates), and exhales "used" crankcase air (full of fuel/oil vapors, and some water vapor too) back into your intake manifold (after the throttle plates) to be burned in combustion. It's mostly to regulate pressure (so that blowby doesn't build up pressure in crankcase and blow out an oil seal), while also controlling emissions (or else you'd just vent the excess crankcase pressure to the outside air directly).

__________________
7AT Track Car!
Journal thread / Car setup details