Engine oil never gets hot- changing to 5w20

[Jay]

IR temperature guns are handy for a lot of things, including measuring oil temp, if you don't mind shooting the sump. Here's one for $40.:

http://www.exoticlizards.com/temp-gun.html

 

[edhackett]

I don't think that placing a temperature sender in the T for pressure sending units is a good idea. There is no oil flow there, and you will not get accurate readings. The thermocouple must be immersed directly in the oil flow. Accessing the oil galley at a blanking plug is the best. The most common way of adding an oil temp. sender is by using a fitting that replaces the drain plug.

My WRX usually runs sump temperatures of about 130-140F at highway speed when the temp. is in the +20F range. It will come up 20-30 degrees when I slow down to around town speeds. Same in the summer, my oil temp on a 100F day will be cooler traveling at 85 mph than it is at 65 mph.

Ed

 

[STSinNYC]

Recently I drove across Penna. from east to west on I-80. Standing temp was 8 degrees F, with wind chill maybe -35? The temp gauge showed the coolant rarely got to normal temp, and at a stop, I could put my hand on top of the engine block for a few seconds. No question the internal temp was not at the normal level, and it showed in worse fuel economy (I make that run fairly often and log the MPG continuously).

 

[wwillson]

quote:

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Originally posted by edhackett:
I don't think that placing a temperature sender in the T for pressure sending units is a good idea. There is no oil flow there, and you will not get accurate readings. The thermocouple must be immersed directly in the oil flow. Accessing the oil galley at a blanking plug is the best. The most common way of adding an oil temp. sender is by using a fitting that replaces the drain plug.

My WRX usually runs sump temperatures of about 130-140F at highway speed when the temp. is in the +20F range. It will come up 20-30 degrees when I slow down to around town speeds. Same in the summer, my oil temp on a 100F day will be cooler traveling at 85 mph than it is at 65 mph.

Ed

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Ed,

That sound like a great idea! Does anyone know the drain plug thread size on the Suburban and/or Villager?

 

[heyjay]

quote:

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Originally posted by MolaKule:
For '02 Burb:

On my '02 Burb:

At the back of the engine there is a "T" on the block near the firewall just to the right of the distributor, which has a pressure guage sensor AND idiot light oil pressure sensor. This is where I intend to put oil temp sender on mine.

For the water temp, there are a number of pipe plugs on the intake manifold. I prefer here because the coolant flows through IM all the time.

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I'm confused: the Vortec 5.3 truck motor has "up integrated" ignition with Coil Per Cylinder. There is NO distributor!

Also, the Vortec 5.3 truck motor uses a composite or plastic "dry" intake manifold. The only coolant is in the heated throttle body - prevents icing in cold temps.

There are 4 small pipes that run along the intake manifold: those are "steam relief" pipes from the top of the aluminum cylinder heads and bleed air and steam into the surge tank.

Are we talking about the same Vortec 5.3 motor?? I thought GM gave up on distributors in 1999.

I've been trying to figure out how to add mechanical oil pressure, oil temp, and water temp sensors myself. The new Vortec doesn't lend itself to such modification.

One possibility is to remove the oil level sensor from the oil pan to mount an oil temp sensor, but that would bugger up your oil level sensor. The Driver Information Center would then start flashing CHECK OIL LEVEL in yellow letters.

Once I figure it out, you folks will be the first to know.

Jerry

 

[wwillson]

I broke down and bought a infrared thermometer at Radio Shack tonight. After about an hour of driving around town I stopped and checked the water temp at the thermostat and the oil temp at the oil filter. The water temp was 185F and the oil was only 145F. It's only about 30F here tonight which is reasonably cold, but I did expect the oil temp to be higher after an hour of stop and go driving. Now I'm convinced that my oil never gets warmer than about 150-160F in the wintertime and that running xw-20 isn't going to hurt anything.

Wayne

 

[jaj]

I don't know if they're still available anywhere, but I used to have a VDO brand oil temp guage, and the sender was a replacement for the drain plug. It had a spade slip-on connector on it, and you just slipped off the wire, put a deep socket over it and took it out for an oil change.

The car was a BMW 4 cylinder model, and it took a very long time to warm up from cold, and it always ran cooler on the highway than in the city. But it did run up to about 200 degrees F pretty often.

I have a new BMW with an oil temp guage, and it runs quite a bit cooler with thinner oil. It heats up quickly because of the oil-to-water oil cooler, but the running temp is lower, rising only when sitting in traffic.

Cheers
JJ

 

[MNgopher]

I honestly think that without an actual oil temp guage, the rest is all guesswork.

I know after a hard run, I can touch the oil pan and it will feel luke warm when its -20 outside. Open up the drain plug (yes, I am crazy enough to do my oil changes when its cold outside)and the oil is a boatload warmer. Perhaps not up to summer temp, but very warm nonetheless.

A comment was made above about windchill. For a car, windchill is pretty much meaningless until the engine is shut off. In that case, a colder windchill will cool everything faster. Yes, the colling eficiency is much higher in cold temps, but thats what the thermostat is for in the cooling system.

I have run into situations where a the engine coolant will not maintain temp at idle (around -15 F and colder with wind generally). Anything off idle and it holds fine, down to -30 F or so.

 

[wwillson]

quote:

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Originally posted by Patman:
I've often said on here that a 5w20 or 0w20 oil is a good choice if you do short trips in winter. The viscosity of that oil when the oil temp is 150F is still going to be thicker than most 40wt oils at 220F, so if you're running an even thicker oil than 5w20 to begin with, imagine how thick it is.

Considering how well M1 0w20 is doing on here, I'd go with that.

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Well said Patman! I'll bet that while I'm driving around with 5w-40 at 140* my oil filter bypass is open all the time and the flow has to be pretty low. Whey not run a thinner oil that is still probably at least a 40 or 50 and get better filtration and flow?

 

[tpi]

quote:

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Originally posted by wwillson:
I broke down and bought a infrared thermometer at Radio Shack tonight. After about an hour of driving around town I stopped and checked the water temp at the thermostat and the oil temp at the oil filter. The water temp was 185F and the oil was only 145F. It's only about 30F here tonight which is reasonably cold, but I did expect the oil temp to be higher after an hour of stop and go driving. Now I'm convinced that my oil never gets warmer than about 150-160F in the wintertime and that running xw-20 isn't going to hurt anything.

Wayne

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I'm going out to get one of these thermometers too. How can we make informed viscosity choices if we don't know the oil temperature. Looks like the 0W-20 fits like a glove for 140 degree oil sump, just like 5W-40 fits like a glove for 230 degree sump temp.

 

[wwillson]

quote:

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Originally posted by MNgopher:
I honestly think that without an actual oil temp guage, the rest is all guesswork.

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I'll agree that my "grab the oil filter" testing was a complete SWAG, probably accurate to withing +/- 50* . I took several measurements with the infrared thermometer around the oil pan and the oil filter and the temp didn't vary by more than 3*F. I'm going to assume that the infrared is a pretty good way to get a very accurate reading.

 

[haley10]

My 30wt. synthetic fares much better in the CCS numbers than @ 30C than many/most 5W20's.

I don't buy the premise. Synthetics flow much better than conventionals when cold. -10F is not really that cold. As long as the flow is good, the thicker viscosity may actually help your engine to warm faster and achieve a more normal operating temperature.

GM recommends 0-30 or 5-30 when extremely cold.

Unless specifically recommended, I don't think a 20W has any benefit. The CCS is the important thing imho, in North America.

 

[MolaKule]

Interesting coincidence: I am having to drive the '92 Burb (350 V8, 30% 4-wheel drive mode) here because of heavy snows, ice, and really cold temps and checked the oil temp with the IR thermometer the other night after arriving home. Outside temp was 17 F.

On a 40 mile drive at 75 mph down the turnpike (2-wheel mode and in drive) and then a slow drive for 5 miles (in 4-wheel mode and 2nd gear), the hot end of the dipstick (upon arrival at home) showed 105 F. I could hold the "hot" end of the dipstick in my hand, even though the water temp showed 180-210 during the drive.

Peak oil temps on the turnpike would have undoubtedly gone higher, but at arrival, the temps were what was measured.

[ February 06, 2004, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: MolaKule ]

 

[greencrew]

This topic come up on one of the f-150 boards. One guy was running an oil temp gage. I would have to go read it again for exact details, but it did confirm the Wayne's hand test somewhat.

He said the oil temp runs about 100* F above the outside temp, but does not go below a min temp, and does not go above a max temp. The min was around 150-160, the max around 200.

I don't remember where he measured it, but I'm sure it was not the oil pan or filter, which would be cooler than the engine.

I too like to grab both filters on my dual by-pass to see how hot they are. At zero the top of the full flow filter is slightly painful, but the bottom is luke warm. The top of the by-pass is hot no pain, and the bottom is ice cold.

But this is a truck designed to pull big loads, and the conclusion is that Ford designed them with suficient oil cooling capacity. It is a 6 quart sump for starters.

 

[heyjay]

Esso Canada ran a test a few years back on a CAT 3406B inline 6 turbodiesel truck motor. It was a highly controlled test on an engine dynometer with instrumentation everywhere.

After 2 hours at 100% load and 100% rated RPM, the engineers figured the test should begin. They found wide variations in oil temp, from around 100C / 212F in the sump, 120C / 248F in the conrod bearings, and 350C / 660F in the piston ring land area.

So remember that although oil sump temp is a good indication of how well the oil is doing in the sump, it's running MUCH hotter at the oil control ring.

I just wish I could figure out a way of hooking up mechanical oil temp and pressure, and mechanical water temp gauges to my 2000 GMC with Vortec motor.

Jerry

 

[DEWFPO]

Our 2003 Audi bi-turbo has an oil temp gauge. I don't know where it is actually located since service manuals for this car are impossible to get.

Aanyway, oil temps always go up to 215 F and satabilize there unless I get into the turbos, then it can go to 250F. The oil takes far longer to get hot, and cools off far faster than the coolant during shutdowns.

DEWFPO

 

[TC]

I guess my thoughts went to GM and the owner's manual, like Johnny. My question is, what -- if anything -- unusual is happening with your two rides that doesn't occur with other examples of those engines, and what might be happening that was either overlooked or not taken into account by GM engineers when they published their oil weight recommendations. If the answer is that there's nothing unusual going on with your rides, which I'd bet my mortgage on, everything you're observing in terms of oil/oil pan temps were all observed and taken into account by the factory. I see no reason to overide the owner's manual, but also consider the possibility of severe service, as Johnny mentioned.

 

[Johnny]

All of the above is the best example I can think of why city (stop and go) driving is hard on your car. This is exactly why I do not subscribe to doing very, very, long extended drains no matter what kind of oil you use. You just cannot get rid of the contaminates driving like this.

wwillson: You could start your car running at 8:00 AM and drive all day for 12 hours around Chicago and your oil temp would never get above 185. This would also hold true for the summer months. At 185 you might boil off all of the fuel contaminates, but remember, water boils at 212 so you will always have some condensation in there unless you take another trip to Iowa.

This is why folks should understand what is written in the owners manuals when they talk about normal and severe service. Never leaving the city limits of Chicago is severe service.

 

[wwillson]

quote:

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Originally posted by Johnny:
All of the above is the best example I can think of why city (stop and go) driving is hard on your car. This is exactly why I do not subscribe to doing very, very, long extended drains no matter what kind of oil you use. You just cannot get rid of the contaminates driving like this.

wwillson: You could start your car running at 8:00 AM and drive all day for 12 hours around Chicago and your oil temp would never get above 185. This would also hold true for the summer months. At 185 you might boil off all of the fuel contaminates, but remember, water boils at 212 so you will always have some condensation in there unless you take another trip to Iowa.

This is why folks should understand what is written in the owners manuals when they talk about normal and severe service. Never leaving the city limits of Chicago is severe service.

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I have given up on extended drains and expensive synthetics for the van which mostly does short trips and stop-and-go driving. I'm beginning to believe that the only way to keep the insolubles from harming the engine is to drain the oil or put on a by-pass filter (which I'm just not going to do). I would disagree that taking a long trip will get the water out of your oil any better than in-town driving. My experience shows that the highest oil temp will be reached in stop-and-go city driving, not on the highway.

 

[heyjay]

One thing to keep in mind about GM oil viscosity recommendations is that they appear to have a double standard.

The same exact motor from GMPP (General Motors Performance Parts) as an aftermarket "crate" motor has a 10W-40 recommendation.

Say an LS1 that in the Corvette has a factory-fill 5W-30, typically Mobil 1. Corvette owners have complained about oil consumption.

The LS1 as a crate motor, exactly the same as the production Corvette LS1, has a 10W-40 viscosity recommendation. either regular or synthetic.

What gives?

Jerry