I wouldn't worry about any of that. I would use thicker oil based on pressure readings I've seen in my car, YMMV of course.

I race a car with no cooler for 24 hours straight. It runs 290-300+ (gauge stops at 300) oil temps the entire time. It has 222,000 miles on the engine,~5,000 since rebuilding it, 100% race miles since about 214k. Current leakdown/compression is identical to post-rebuild. We run thick oil in it (due to bearing clearances) but that's it. No cooler.. in fact the cooler I have on my BRZ is from that car, we removed it due to a leak at a fitting (wasn't tight enough) and decided the engine going away was a better risk than a leak removing us from a race weekend that cost us $5k. One is simply a lot more likely than the other.

Having said that, I run a cooler because I intend to track the BRZ a lot and daily drive it a lot. I don't want to rebuild it for 200,000 miles at least. Oil being cooler let's me be lazy. Hot oil can/does run at lower pressures and heat is one of the causes of shear in a VII (vis idx imp) oil. On the flip side, thicker oil actually results in higher engine oil temps as it's less effective at removing heat from the engine so everything heats up more.

My opinion is that an oil cooler is a good idea for a car that sees track use, especially in hot climates, but if UOAs are showing no major shear/etc and you are good about oil changes I wouldn't consider it a requirement. Thin oil that is shearing and at high temps (where it's vis/HTHS isn't very good) isn't great at protecting an engine from wear over the long haul. Thicker oil adds heat, which brings it closer to those points where it breaks down/shears/etc, hence the issue.. and eventually the desire for a cooler to bring temps down.

Thin as you can go, thick as is needed.

So i shouldn't worry about a day's worth of autocross?

I wouldn't. I've autocrossed and tracked the car without a cooler without worrying about it.

I spoke to tetsuya tada, and i asked him what is the max safe oil temp. he said 130C was the guideline. so if you are seeing beyond that, you need an oil cooler!

Many will prefer adding an oil cooler well before 266F, thats is a little hot.

yes i prefer to have oil just 10 degrees more than coolant.

Has anyone noticed the car losing power due to oil temps?

Perrin did extensive testing and posted results in their blog: http://blog.perrinperformance.com/pe...-s-oil-cooler/

They measured a loss in power as the oil temps went past 100C

That was my reason for asking, wanted to see if another party could confirm the same issue in the real world

lol its over 100 almost as soon as you turn the car on.

I have a suspicion that that test was done on the car running the Vortech. If so, then the heat loss is a bit inflated due to the heat soak from the forced induction. I would like to know exactly what car they did those tests on.

What are you talking about or referring to, can you please clarify?

Sadly heat soak shouldn't be a major issue for the Vortech kits:

1) The heat given to the intake air by compression is inherent in all FI setups.

2) The amount of heat delivered to the block via conduction is pretty low. The Vortech kit has one thick aluminum mounting bracket and one very thin support to the block. Initially, I was skeptical of the design, but the more I've looked at it... it seems to be just enough to support the supercharger, isolate it thermally, and help dissipate the heat it generates. I still won't be buying one, but I tip my hat to their engineers for finding an elegant compromise.

anyway!! yes you do need an oil cooler. damn australia!

yes in the real world at the race track top speeds were reduced ten miles per hour...i could feel the lack of top end power...

Setting the power loss issue aside for the moment (not saying it isn't important) is there any reason other than power loss that a non FI FRS needs an oil cooler for HPDE days? I've been asking around on bobstheoilguy forums about oil temps and 260-270 doesn't seem to concern folks as far as lubrication with a good synthetic oil.

We are seeing 290-300 degrees on STOCK engines at the track, how are you only seeing 260-270??

I don't worry about 270 though, hell the endurance race car does 290-300+ (gauge stops at 300) for 14-24 hours. :shrug:

if i'm using my car as a daily driver as well as some track duty, and running an oil cooler would you say it would also benefit me to run 5w30 oil instead of the 0w20 or what would you guys recommend?

I run 0w30/5w30 because I noticed low (er than I wanted) oil pressure near redline.

Occasional track use.. I probably wouldn't bother.

thanks Dave, I thought I read stock cars were seeing 260-270 without a cooler, temps that higher make me more concerned.

I took my stock BRZ, 1k miles on the odometer, only mod was Hawk pads, to Sebring the first weekend in June and using a ScangaugeII OBDII port reader, I saw oil temps stay consistently in the mid to high 290s during the session on Day 1, and at one point touch 300*f. For some reason the second day the temps stayed around the high 280s to the low 290s, but the ambient temp was the same.

Granted, that is from the stock oil temp sensor, and I am not sure where the stock oil temp sensor is mounted, which may/may not have an effect on the temps that are being read.

Water temp however was perfectly fine. If I didn't have the scangauge, I would have no idea that the oil temps were that dangerously high.

I have the Perrin oil cooler.

At the track in 80ºF I saw 249ºF tops.

^^ Great info. What kind of temps were you getting before the oil cooler was installed?

Unfortunately I didn't have anything to monitor temps before I got the oil cooler. The cooler and a Scangauge were part of the parts-pile that was growing while the car hibernated over the winter.

if someone wants to donate an oil cooler i'd be glad to log before/after temps :D

Or we can just look at my car ;)

The max I've seen at Sebring with the cooler have been 235.

Edit, err 239F.. 115 celsius.

I'd rather get a free oil cooler, thanks, lol.

What did you see before you had the oil cooler? And what kind of ambient temps were you in when you were seeing a high of 239*?


Also, kind of getting to the root of the issue; where is everyone getting the arbitrary numbers of "anything over 2xx*f is dangerous"? I know over 230* people claim the engine pulls timing, which is no big deal as its going to be a tad slower for the sake of reliability, it looks like even with an oil cooler we'd hit that on track down here in FL. But where are people getting the fact that over 2xx* it's dangerous? I know cooler temps are ideal, and it never hurts to run an oil cooler, but where's the science to show that having 300*f oil temps is detrimental? Reading into the new synthetic oils, they're claiming to protect up to 500*f, so it doesn't seem like the oil will "fail" or break down at 300*f.

I believe someone asked one of the gt86 engineers the question about oil temps and the response back was 260 was the maximum safe temp. I'm not sure what the specific issue was with temps over 260. I know other cars can handle near 300+ oil temps without issue from poking around on bobistheoilguy's forum. I'm sure those temps reduce the oil life, but a lot of folks change their oil after a track weekend.

If the car's factory engineers claim that 260 is the maximum safe temperature they why didn't they include an oil cooler from the factory? Seems to me that this car was built specifically for people to have fun with it, DRIVING IT HARD, be it on mountain roads or on a race track. So why develop it with an inherent flaw like this?

So they can sell the car cheaper for more people. Given majority are drive around show car types. Small amount will canyon and an even smaller percent will push it hard in the canyons an most will crash if they do. Then a really really really small amount will go track their car compared to overall sales.

How do you get the oil removed from the cooler when you do an oil change? I'm planning on doing 0W-20 for streets and 0W-30 for track so I don't really want to mix them up.

Pull off a line and drain it... or just mix the old with the new.

I believe it will be a pita so just use 0w30. It will be much easier. Why 0w20 for street? Better fuel economy? Then remember that if you use 0w30 once then swapping it out for 0w20 youre wasting an oil change... You can use the same oil for at least 3 track days granted that its quality oil.

I take off a line at the take off plate add my custom an blowpipe adaptor and us air to push the fluids back into the engine gets about 90% of the oil out...depends on the coolers height and orientation..or if the fittings are on the bottom just drain the cooler directly (messy...usually)

Yeah I would probably want to pull the line but it might get messy. I know with computer watercooling they have quick disconnects that make draining simple, but not sure if it's a safe idea in a car.

http://koolance.com/image/content_pa...sconnected.jpg

I just want to use 0W-20 for the street because a lot of times I only drive short distances and I probably don't get it warmed up enough. Then again maybe it doesn't matter because I rarely go over 4-5k

Water cooling? Like... computer water cooling?

Just use whatever you'd use on track. The MPG hit will cost you less than the oil change cost.

First off, it doesn't sound like we really know the source... it sounds like "someone might have heard from an engineer.....", but I'll believe it when I see the words from the engineer, and it was a mechanical engineer working on the engine/drivetrain, not a audio engineer working on the speaker system who heard from his brother that works in the drivetrain dept. that 260 is the maximum safe temp.

Personally, I don't buy it. 260*f sounds extremely low to be a maximum safe temp, maybe they meant under 260 is "ideal".

Second off, from your screenname, I take it you go to/went to NC State. I graduated from there in 2008. :party0030:

This. You can mix oils but the pressure you get (well that I got) with 0w20 makes it pointless IMO. The very little MPG increase isn't worth the effort of changing it just for track days, and then swapping back.

I change my fluid on cars I track and lower OCIs so the oil in the cooler doesn't concern me much.

Based on information I've seen over at Bobistheoilguy.com there are quite a few high performance cars (Vipers,Mustangs,Vettes) running their oil temps up in the 300s without issue. Now that doesn't mean we won't have an issue at the same temp, but it does make me wonder what about our engines could be so different as to make you not want to run the oil temp that high.

We know the car cuts power, so thats a sign that the engineers are a little concerned about oil temp (unless that is common with other cars, I don't know).

Do higher oil temps have an effect on direct injection? Is it something more boxster specific?

I'm still going to run a cooler under the better safe than sorry mantra, but I am curious what else we are missing.

so is the Oil Galley a good place to add a oil temp sender? I want to keep an eye on the oil temp before I get oil cooler.
thanks