When do you consider the oil warm
 

Just curious if anyone has opinions or actual data on what temperature we should be letting the oil get to before we consider the engine ready to drive hard?

On my 135i I always waited until 160F. I'm currently waiting on a bluetooth OBD2 reader to come in so I can check oil temps, kinda feel like I'm flying blind on this car (only had it a couple weeks) without a stock oil temp gauge like I used to have.

Depends what you mean by "hard", I always wait until my oil is up over 180 before giving it 10/10ths at the track, but I have no scientific data to back up my reasoning. I chose that number because 180 is just before my oil cooler thermostat opens.

My old 135i took 10-15 minutes of driving before the oil was up to temp.

Coolant rises to temp within a couple minutes, but oil takes 10 minutes or so on any car.

SO, if you want to be safe, just don't drive hard until you've driven the car for at least 10-15 minutes.

Yea well I'm all about the common sense route but I'm more of a hard data kinda guy (work in aerospace). My 08' 135i took anywhere from a relatively short amount of time in summer to almost my entire commute to finally even hit 160. Maybe I'll just call it 160 again and read that from Torque on my phone once my obd2 adapter comes in since I'm not wanting to put gauges in this car like I did on my WRX.

Oil pressures reach normal levels at around 175-180F.

Thanks. That based on data you've collected on this motor?

Yes, data logging for over 2 weeks now temps/pressures.
And oil temps for over a year.

Awesome thanks, I know what temps I'll be looking for now once I can read the values. I figured someone who already had access to the data would have looked into it.

I think we all get nuts about oils, pressures and temps. Over think it.
However it's common knowledge higher oil pressures mean more wear. At first monitoring oil temps I figured pressures would be stable by 150-160F.

But really oil pressures does not stabilize until temps get to that 175F-180F range, which means pushing the motor at all before that point is just extra UN-needed wear.

For example at 3500RPM when oil is at 150F I generally get 80-85PSI readings. At 180F I see stabilized 50PSI readings and that drops the more heat you get in the oil. But never less pressure than RPMs. (3500RPM 35-40PSI when above 210F)

When we start talking about coolers and over cooling oil you don't want to operate this motor hard below 175F based on what I have seen with pressures.

So if you are in a colder climate and have an oil cooler its something to note.

This makes sense, because, all oils are designed and rated at operating temps, which I believe is 210-220.

Below these temps and oil is thicker, pressures higher, and water/condensation never gets boiled out.

Above these temps and oil is thinner, pressures lower.

From what I've read here that people have logged, unless running on track, oil cooler keeps temps too low.

On street driven cars, oil coolers should never be run without a thermostat. That's my opinion anyway. It is counterproductive to bring the oil temps below ideal range.

From what I've seen, even with thermostat, temps are around 180 which is where the thermostat opens. Only until running on track do temps rise to above 200, where they did stay stable on the logs posted.

Since I'm building my car for track use eventually, I plan to install an oil cooler, but I'm going to either tape it up, or undo the lines until it's needed.

I'd imagine in summer most people would be ok, but people who get real winter and no thermostat would be in trouble.

Even with oil cooler on my previous car oil temps on street were 230-260

I replaced my 180F thermostat with a 203F thermostat. It has helped as my oil is around 195F-200F during normal driving, versus the 175F-185F I saw before.

Having a front license plate is also beneficial to block a little air flow. I saw a 20F drop at the track when I removed it.