Quote:
Originally Posted by Tor
The purpose of the of the heat exchanger is to cool the oil. Hence, the term "oil cooler". 
Like I said, if you want to heat your oil get a pre-heater. That's 100% more effective. Nothing wrong with installing a pre-heater in a sports car either if it's daily driven during the winter (nice comfort item too).
1) Otherwise, it's totally unnecessary. As I started out writing we are using modern multi grade oil that is perfectly capable of lubricating at lower temp.
2) With regards to oil and water... oil doesn't break down because of condensation. And it will evaporate next time the engine is running anyway. Oil degrades due to too high temp.
3) Next, if people want to heat the oil faster so it takes less time before they can beat on the engine, then that is a false logic too. The oil temp doesn't matter for wheter you can beat on the engine or not as the oil is perfectly capable at lubricating at lower temps (see 1.).
The whole engine needs to be up to temp. Block, pistons, rings etc. so that is has expanded to the designed tollerances. Having 4 or even 20 deg higher oil temp is not going to aid (much at all) in that. |
When you say preheater do you mean a block heater, right, not a heat exchanger rig? Something that screws into the block and has an electrical heating element that warms the block used primarily in areas with snow/cold weather?
I commute 3.5 miles to work so extra heating of the oil is nice to get it to operating temp faster. If I was to get on it when it is cold to redline my oil pressure gauge looks like the pressure is going to go off the max value, and the few times I’ve done it I backed off. I can’t imagine that is good. There has to be a range of good presures.