Quote:
Originally Posted by mike the snake
Is it safe to conclude that at higher temps the oil is thinning out and causing the lower pressures?
If so, maybe keeping the temps lower might be all that's needed to maintain the pressure needed for high performance?
I read about lots of people reporting much lower temps after installing oil coolers, especially under racing conditions, where temps stabilized at around 210-230.
Do you think keeping the temps low will keep the oil pressure up high enough for racing?
|
Yes and no. Higher oil temps always drop oil pressure. The problem is that the OEM oil pump isn't large enough to supply the required oil pressures for substantially higher than OEM hp under normal driving conditions.
So while an oil cooler will help lower oil temps and help keep oil pressure higher you'll find that most of those with oil coolers are getting only about 10 psi more oil pressure so it does help but let's get real here. Those guys tracking their cars with oil coolers and that have good data are either NA or may have 280 hp with a supercharger. So 50-60 psi is probably going to do the trick but we need a solution to run 400, 500, and 600 hp.
If I can get 70-75 psi on the street consistently I would be happy for our customers running 400-500 hp. For 600+ I would like to see 75-80 psi. If I added an oil cooler to what I've done along with the heavy weight oil I think I'm right there for a reliable high power street car.
Now track cars running 400+ hp will not be able to keep oil temps in the 210-230 F range at all. 260 is going to be realistic for a track car with a cooler so we need that oil pressure in the 85 psi range on the street so we can handle that viscosity drop while racing (we see about 15 psi drop on our STi race engine).
Oh and by the way I'm running 15w50 Red Line as I knew I would still need the extra viscosity to increase pressure.