limp mode even with oil cooler!
 

i went into limp mode all day yesterday at streets of willow, even with my tru-cool 11x8 oil cooler installed. this is larger than the 11 x 5 3/4 unit that comes with many aftermarket kits. ambient temp was about 96 degrees.
very frustrating!

what's even worse though is that after i let the car cool down, and went back out again, the engine would not want to rev up to redline. even though temps were only around 220 and i was only on my first lap, i coudl not rev past about 5000rpm! so i pulled off track and went on the back road, slowly reving up and it went all the way to redline. but when i got back on track and drove it hard, it would not rev up. i'm thinking that putting a load on the engine causes it to go into limp mode (even though temps were low).

is there something that keeps the engine in limp mode after it's been activated a few times? do you need to go through some procedure for re-setting the ecu to get it "out of the system" so to speak?

but what little time i had on track was overall very good. this car is very fast through the slow, tight corners, but i had a hard time rotating the car through the fish bowl. we were going counter-cw and the first few turns after the sweeper and especially going through the chicane, i would pull away fromt the s2000's, but they were faster than me through the bowl.

so does any know if we need to re-set the ecu after it goes into limp mode?

i tried disconnecting the battery but it didnt work.

Hey B, I heard. My friend was there with his SK2 CR and told me about it. That sucks. I recommend you change your oil asap and if you still having problems resetting the ECU, come by the shop and my tech and reset it for you.

I guess the VQHR motor really needs a bigger oil cooler than what you have

No not at all...Nissan just has to loosen up the safety trigger values within the ECU tables a little bit so the engine doesn't have to go into survival mode as often..

well considering that temps were up to 280+, limp mode is a good thing. BUT, the engine should not be getting that hot in the first place, esp. with an oil cooler installed already! on the streets, it's running about 30 degrees cooler (220 withouth, 190 with). but on track apparently this set-up is not sufficient.

but the biggest problem isnt even the limp mode, per se. i mean i'd be ok with backing off (or ending the session early to let thing cool down and going back out again). but i was not able to do this b/c after i let things cool down the engine still will not behave normally! (we're talking temps of 220 and lower)

it wasnt a specific rpm that the engine starts cutting out at, it's more like when the engine is loaded that it would cut out. (if i reved up *very slowly*, it would go all the way up to redline, no problem. but in a track environment where i would nail the throttle gear after gear, it would cut out.)

this happened to me at Industry Day as well. Definitely change out your oil asap. I didn't get to change my oil for a week after the track, and my temps were WAY up even on streets.

Weird though, my car allowed me to redline after letting it cool down, but it wouldn't last long before the oil temps shot up and put the car back into limp mode :( It's definitely a good thing that it DOES go limp though... couldn't imagine what could happen if the car continued to run hard at those oil temps!

I remember the 2003 Mustang Cobra's had a problem where at high sppeds there was oil starvation into parts of the head due to the block design
and centrifugal forces.

I wonder if in the 370Z that maybe the oil just isn't circulating to its fullest because of perhaps some similar design issue. It could explain why even with an oil cooler the overheating symptoms would still occur.

not enough oil to get into the vvel after cooler install? I have no idea

Core size and core efficiency really don't have anything to do with one another. What works on the street and what works on the track often don't have much to do with one another. If you find the temps still getting too hot on the track, next up would be to look into ducting for the cooler and/or a more efficient core