Guages and readings and G tech Pro

[nbracken]

Finally after owning my car for 12 years and 40,000 kms I have fitted decent capilliary temperature gauges and a new oil pressure guage (replacing the original instruments that came from variety of scrappers - but which served me well enough - I recall the original water temp guage and oil pressure came from a Mini and both worked well enough - well the water temperature usually read 'normal' - cannot recall where the oil temp guage came from but it was electrical and never really worked well).

With the new guages everything seems good. I would just be interested in opinions on my readings.

I have a SBC ZZ4 (this engine has done about 30,000 since I bought it new) with oil cooler and twin thermostatically switched fans on the water radiator.

All readings are taken when engine is fully warmed up. I am running BP 10W-50 "Vervis Stinger" semi synthetic engine oil. Good quality mineral oil is hard to find here in Japan as synthetic is now used so widely.

Oil pressure is 27-30 psi at tickover (650 rpm). Rises to 45 by 2000 rpm and peaks at 55-60 higher in the rev range.

Water temperature is a pretty much constant 85 centigrade. Sender is located in the inlet manifold in the area adjacent to where water returns to the radiator.

Oil temperature is pretty constant at 75 centigrade, rises towards 85 when the car is driven hard but the rapidly returns to 75. Sender is located in the sump. I have a wax thermostat located close to the filter take off in the line to the oil cooler

Would be interested in others opinions who have similar set ups and experience.

Also had some fun with my G Tech Pro RR this morning. The 1/4 mile time I recorded 13.36 was really close (within 0.2 secs) to those which I picked up at Elvington and I had a passenger today. Pretty impressive for a GBP150 piece of kit.

[Sidecarbod]

Originally Posted by nbracken

Finally after owning my car for 12 years and 40,000 kms I have fitted decent capilliary temperature gauges and a new oil pressure guage (replacing the original instruments that came from variety of scrappers - but which served me well enough - I recall the original water temp guage and oil pressure came from a Mini and both worked well enough - well the water temperature usually read 'normal' - cannot recall where the oil temp guage came from but it was electrical and never really worked well).

With the new guages everything seems good. I would just be interested in opinions on my readings.

I have a SBC ZZ4 (this engine has done about 30,000 since I bought it new) with oil cooler and twin thermostatically switched fans on the water radiator.

All readings are taken when engine is fully warmed up. I am running BP 10W-50 "Vervis Stinger" semi synthetic engine oil. Good quality mineral oil is hard to find here in Japan as synthetic is now used so widely.

Oil pressure is 27-30 psi at tickover (650 rpm). Rises to 45 by 2000 rpm and peaks at 55-60 higher in the rev range.

Water temperature is a pretty much constant 85 centigrade. Sender is located in the inlet manifold in the area adjacent to where water returns to the radiator.

Oil temperature is pretty constant at 75 centigrade, rises towards 85 when the car is driven hard but the rapidly returns to 75. Sender is located in the sump. I have a wax thermostat located close to the filter take off in the line to the oil cooler

Would be interested in others opinions who have similar set ups and experience.

Also had some fun with my G Tech Pro RR this morning. The 1/4 mile time I recorded 13.36 was really close (within 0.2 secs) to those which I picked up at Elvington and I had a passenger today. Pretty impressive for a GBP150 piece of kit.

Hi Nigel,

I don't know anything about your particular engine but I think that your oil maybe running a bit too cold. If you could get it up to around 90-100 centigrade you can be sure that you are boiling off all the nasty by-products of combustion. Other people may say that it should be about 10 centigrade higher than the water temp but I think regardless of water temp, the oil needs to be between 90-100 (In your case 10 centigrade hotter would put it at 95 anyway!)

For what its worth, all your other figures seem OK to me!

Regards,

Pete.

[wilf]

What Pete said - everything looks fine, although "the book" would have you seek oil temps 10 degrees higher than water. (thats 10 degrees F!).

I don't think you will go far wrong as you are, you could try blanking off the oil cooler, see what happens, I think maybe the wax stat is opening a tad early (but they often do on oil stats -- open around 75C).

[TINKA]

when I first fitted my oil cooler I found the oil was not getting hot enough. I found out from Mocal that as Wilf said the stat opens at about 75deg so got a 92deg one to replace it and it is now fine. HTH

[nbracken]

Martin Wilf Pete
Thanks guys. I'll contact Mocal and give a revised oil thermostat a try.
Regards