Reference temp is reference temp, not "optimal", just "normal operational".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultramaroon
Under no circumstance is 270F better than 150F for long-term life of elastomers.
|
I dunno about that... You really want the oil to regularly get warm enough to drive moisture out, not necessarily to boiling temp but 150F isn't going to do it.
I haven't done UOA myself but there are plenty who report no problems after running multiple track days at 270F+ without a cooler, no oil degradation and no worrying amounts wear metals. If anything, what I've seen suggests that much longer intervals between changes could be justified, but I'm sticking with 5k miles or 6 track days whichever comes first.
275F isn't any kind of problem at all for good synthetic oil. Hell, Mobil1 says their oil is good to 500F!
Quote:
If it gets to 270 in a few laps, and sticks, then it sounds like you've reached equilibrium. I'm not saying your way is bad. I do wonder from where comes all that passion for hot oil.
|
From the first time I tracked it (just a few months after I bought the car), every single track session, the oil goes up to just over 270F indicated, and stays there. It's almost like there's a 2nd thermostatically controlled set point.
I don't have a "passion" for hot oil. I just want to be sure people understand that it is *not* necessary to install an oil cooler to "casually" track these cars (i.e. normal track-day usage, a few 15-20 minute sessions per day). From my point of view, a lot of people in these forums have a fetishistic obsession over keeping oil "as cool as possible", when it's perfectly normal for many cars to run oil temps this high at the track, and higher even.
I think what happened is, some engines on earlier 2013-2014 cars had oil delivery issues for whatever reason, and there were failures in cars run hard at the track. People assumed it was due to "high oil temps", but then failures continued to happen even for cars running oil coolers. So people came to the mistaken conclusion "it's still not cool enough!" So we get the idea that people should run as BIG an oil cooler as possible, and make oil temperatures "as cool as possible". When in reality, if adequate oil isn't being fed to the bearings, things are going to go bad at some point whether running 0w20 at 250F with a cooler or 5w30 at 275F without a cooler...
My main points:
*Good synthetic is not going to have any issues running *well* over 300F, with reasonable change intervals. So it's not *the oil*.
*From the data we have, oil pressure with 5w30 at 275F with no oil cooler, is the *same* as oil pressure with 5w30 at 250F *with* an oil cooler (i.e. running an oil cooler doesn't mean you will have greater oil pressure at the galleys despite the oil being cooler). So it's not *the oil pressure*
*Having an oil cooler installed adds failure points. It is not uncommon to hear of leaky oil cooler plumbing, and at least one car lost an engine due to this! Also, potential for putting slippery fluids on a race track goes up... I.e., adding an oil cooler doesn't necessarily *reduce* risk as much as people seem to think, but does add some risk...
IMO, telling everyone "you have to run an oil cooler to track the car" might be exposing them to more risks and for most track usage I don't think it's warranted.
Again, if I were running endurance events (where cars can see the amount of track hours that my car sees over the course of an entire year with at least a couple of changes), I'd likely run a cooler, would certainly consider it.
For most track usage, it's not necessary.