A MUST READ for Oil Temps for Tracking

[tadams72]

Yep, I have my doubts. Not sure I can get Improved Racing to take it back but I might have to give it a shot. Though it doesn't look like they have anything in the inventory that is going to be the answer it X25's 72 row isn't getting it done.

Have to wonder what the real oil temps the cars with the factory oil heaters are truly seeing then.

[tadams72]

Originally Posted by brokencilence

For my car we used the improved block with no thermostat, it doesn't take long for the oil to get to 160 just from warming the car up before driving it. street driving the oil maintains at 190. At the track my oil has not gotten past 290 and that only happened when the water temp started creeping up to 230 or so....

Which cooler are you running? Problem I see with no thermostat is getting the temps high enough to cook off some of the contaminants in the oil.

[X25]

Originally Posted by tadams72

Which cooler are you running? Problem I see with no thermostat is getting the temps high enough to cook off some of the contaminants in the oil.

I'm currently driving my other car with no (cooler) thermostat, and it gets below threshold temps as soon as I stop drivong aggressively and cruise on the highway. Needless to say, I don't like it. The only low temp I could find for my NC Miata was by Cosworth, but for LS engines, there are more choices than you'd ever need. I'd just find a high flow 180 degrees F or so coolant AND oil thermostats. With those, it would occasionally hit 210 or so waiting at the read lights, so it would hopefully not allow any build up.

I know, thermostats impede flow. If you need more flow, and especially if you have a forced induction system, I think you should consider higher flow water pumps. I'll quote a long post I made about it here shortly.

[X25]

From this thread (focusing on coolant temps):

Originally Posted by X25

I can't believe I missed this post; I must have ignored it seeing ZL1 in title : )) I honestly did not have too big of an issue on cooling the SS, but I've had huge issues with cooling my supercharged Miata, which taught me a lot, and yes, I fixed it! We always need to think of cooling as the whole system.

Air flow:

• Do we have enough air flow to the radiators (water, oil etc.)? If not, can it be improved? Doing a bit of ducting work to make sure all radiators get enough air flow can do wonders.
• Also, if the radiators will have to share the air flow, the best performance is attained by stacking the radiators closely. If you have GM's giant license plate holder or other obstructing things in front of the air inlet, you should relocate or remove them.

Thermostat / Coolant:

• A well designed racing thermostat not only opens up earlier, it also does so faster (but not too fast to shock the system), and most importantly, it allows more flow!
• If you don't have enough flow, the coolant in your engine might be running at 240 degrees F while the coolant inside the radiator might be running at 210 degrees F (since it's not replaced with hotter coolant quickly enough), greatly reducing the efficiency of cooling.
• I did not change thermostat for the 1LE, but I actually completely removed it for the Miata (to test it out), and the increase in cooling capacity was nothing but dramatic.
• I checked what the coolest temp ever recorded was in my area, and set my coolant ratio taking that into consideration. You need at least 20% coolant (or you might face corrosion). I set mine to 30/70, and will leave it like that.
• On the top of that, you can add a coolant booster (like water wetter). I first used Redline's water wetter, and it gunked up, burned when my coolant temps hit 240 degrees. I switched to Amsoil's coolant booster, and no issues. Even if the booster drops the temps by, say, degrees, it's well worth it.
• Based on all these above, a high flow water pump can also do wonders, but you'll need to test it out. I see people also upgrading the supercharger's own cooling system's pump, which makes sense, too.

Oil grade:

• The lower weight oil will be thinner, and will flow much faster, aiding in cooling, reducing friction, and reducing back pressure.
• The higher grade oil provides a tiny tiny bit more protection at high temps, but it also greatly increases the back pressure, thereby reducing the flow. You know what happens to the exhaust flow if you add a few more cats to the exhaust? The same thing is happening here. The modern engines have small oil lines surrounding the engine, pistons, etc., and if you run thicker oil (than spec'ed), you end up actually reducing the flow. I learned from another thread that our oil pump actually opens up bypass valve at 50 PSI. In other words, any pressure more than 50 PSI means not all the oil going through the pump is flowing back to the engine, but rather some portion is going back to the sump.
• If I were you, I would stick to the 5W-30 oil. Don't run 40 weight oil unless you need to do so (which you can determine by doing Bob the oil guy's test, but I'm almost sure you don't need to). 50 weight? I would run away! 50 weight can easily add 20 degrees to your oil temps compared to 30 weight. There is one important point here: 0W-40 is NOT THINNER than 5W-30. For synthetics, you should judge them first and foremost by their warm weight. In other words, the difference between 10W-30 and 5W-30 synthetic oils is much less than the difference between these oils and 0W-40. 15W-50 lives on another planet.

Oil temp gauge:

• If I recall correctly, the oil temp gauge shows only up to 266 degrees even at the dash (is that right?), but you can still read it until your engine dies from OBD2 port.
• I use this Bluetooth OBD2 reader to get all the info, and watch from my phone if I need to during the track sessions: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vgate-iCar2-...8&var=&vxp=mtr
• Well, it is calculated on the SS, so I installed my own temp gauge anyway. I don't know about ZL1's. I remember someone stating all but those with dry-sump engines (Z/28) having fake gauges. Sad.

Additional (air-to) oil cooler:
You are right, the single biggest thing you can do to drop your coolant temps is to let it free of cooling the oil. That said, cooling oil is a very hard task, and will cost you $1000 to properly do so.

My recommendation:

• Stage 1 (~$650):
  • Bigger radiator.
  • 30/70 coolant/water or so.
  • 5W-30 oil unless 40 weight is absolutely necessary.
  • Revised ducting for the radiators (if possible).
  • Lower temp / high flow thermostat.
• Stage 2 (additional ~$800+):
  • Decouple oil cooling from radiator.
  • External Oil cooler.
  • Gauges (oil temp for sure, so you know what's going on).
  • High flow water pump (highly recommended for supercharged cars)
• Stage 3 (additional ~$400+):
  • Decouple transmission cooler from radiator (you have one, right? Does it use the radiator?).
  • Additional radiator(s) (this is actually fairly easy, using go-kart radiators).
• Stage 4:
  • De-mod and sell the car

[JusticePete]

The Fluidyne (no thermostat) and a C&R Racing radiator (direct factory replacement) with a 160 degree thermostat have proven to keep our FI and big HP NA motors cool on road courses. Noting else we have tried can match the performance.

[tadams72]

Originally Posted by X25

I'm currently driving my other car with no (cooler) thermostat, and it gets below threshold temps as soon as I stop drivong aggressively and cruise on the highway. Needless to say, I don't like it. The only low temp I could find for my NC Miata was by Cosworth, but for LS engines, there are more choices than you'd ever need. I'd just find a high flow 180 degrees F or so coolant AND oil thermostats. With those, it would occasionally hit 210 or so waiting at the read lights, so it would hopefully not allow any build up.

I know, thermostats impede flow. If you need more flow, and especially if you have a forced induction system, I think you should consider higher flow water pumps. I'll quote a long post I made about it here shortly.

Well I'm not boosted so that's a positive though looking at your results, SSSoon's results, and others, this is a problem for me. I might have to limp it for awhile until I can afford a viable solution. My car is driven on the street about half the time so no thermostat in the adapter is not an option. Perhaps this would be a better option for flow and thus cooling capacity:

http://www.improvedracing.com/oil-th...15f-p-434.html

[JusticePete]

Originally Posted by tadams72

Well I'm not boosted so that's a positive though looking at your results, SSSoon's results, and others, this is a problem for me. I might have to limp it for awhile until I can afford a viable solution. My car is driven on the street about half the time so no thermostat in the adapter is not an option. Perhaps this would be a better option for flow and thus cooling capacity:

http://www.improvedracing.com/oil-th...15f-p-434.html

I drove my 2010 SC Camaro with this setup in Michigan on dry cold winter days. The tires weren't very happy, but my oil came up to temp no problem using an old trucker trick. I slid a piece of cardboard in front of the oil cooler and covered about half of it.

If you don't track your Camaro, a thermostat is fine. If you track it, you need maximum cooling. Do you daily drive your Camaro in the winter?

[tadams72]

Originally Posted by JusticePete

I drove my 2010 SC Camaro with this setup in Michigan on dry cold winter days. The tires weren't very happy, but my oil came up to temp no problem using an old trucker trick. I slid a piece of cardboard in front of the oil cooler and covered about half of it.

If you don't track your Camaro, a thermostat is fine. If you track it, you need maximum cooling. Do you daily drive your Camaro in the winter?

It's not a daily driver, just a fun driver. Winters tend to be pretty mild here in San Diego though.

Sucks I've got a lot invested in this setup thinking it was going to. Be a vast improvement over the factory. While it might still prove better, doesn't sound as though it is going to be good enough.

Going to mull this over a bit. Thanks.

[STONE SS]

Well judging from everyone's posts in here it sounds like my setup won't be enough, but I will find out soon enough. I finally got my aftermarket gauges today and the gauge pod should be in soon so I can monitor real temps. I used the same cooler as 12-motorsports, but did the lingenfelter adapter with no thermostat that has -10AN ports instead of -8AN like the improved racing adapter even though it has -10AN connections. I mounted it down low on the crash bar so it gets good flow through the lower grill. Only engine mods I have are headers, exhaust, and tune so it's not a high HP build. I guess if it comes down to it I could upgrade to the Fluidyne cooler, but hopefully that won't be necessary.

[hcsi99]

Justice Pete has the gears in my head turning.
Here's my plan, I'm going to cut and box the bumper as JP did, but I'm going to try is with the cooler I have. I'm going to cut the opening to accommodate the big cooler that JP recommended in case my cooler still does cut the mustard. I'm also going to make some ducting out of some aluminum sheet I picked up.

[White_SS/RS]

Im skeptical of any additional airflow benefits to cutting the crash bar since its covered by the facia and it's a good 8" from the cooling cores. I think the lower grille brings in plenty of air. Mounting the oil core low and up against the radiator (within a 1/4") it will keep the airflow clean and you'll have satisfactory results.

[COBARO1]

Here's what I did and I live in Menifee Ca where it's 101-107 degrees outside most of the time. Oil temp stays around 210-220 and trans temp 180. Modified front bumper with billet aluminum piece and countersunk allen head bolts to provide more airflow plus t3 splitter and mailbox is functional. Ron Davis radiator helps keep water temps safe and I use a lingenfelter modified supercharger intercooler pump to keep water flowing. Fog lights are set up with round tubing for brake cooling hoses.Attached are before and after shots

[hcsi99]

That's an amazing setup, but putting holes in the cover would be a last resort for me, even if it's functional. Thanks for posting!

[forklord]

Originally Posted by Clausing

Here's what I did and I live in Menifee Ca where it's 101-107 degrees outside most of the time. Oil temp stays around 210-220 and trans temp 180. Modified front bumper with billet aluminum piece and countersunk allen head bolts to provide more airflow plus t3 splitter and mailbox is functional. Ron Davis radiator helps keep water temps safe and I use a lingenfelter modified supercharger intercooler pump to keep water flowing. Fog lights are set up with round tubing for brake cooling hoses.Attached are before and after shots

shit man thats sick. i just sold my eforce for road course purposes. was thinking of doing something like what you got before i sold it. do you track your car much? how are the iats and oil temps?