Logging Temps in a 2020 Ranger

[ctechbob]

I don't know who or if anyone will be interested in this little experiment but.

I had to take the camper up to the shop for some warranty repair the other day, and since I didn't need my 'navigation' phone for, well, navigating, I decided to reinstall Torque Pro and do some temperature logging. This is pulling our 26DJSE that clocks in at about 5800# and is a full 8' wide trailer. No highway running on this route this time, just 45-55mph state roads.

I should have spent some more time with the setup, I meant to grab speed but missed getting the PID in the capture. I'm capturing at twice a second.

In all, I captured:

Coolant Temp
Transmission Temp
Intake Air Temp
Outside Temp
RPM
Boost/Vaccum
Timing Adv/Retard

First the Towing plot. Starting from a stone-cold truck. The three humps where the trans temp climbs up to 210 or thereabouts is where I was crawling through traffic, climbing hills don't really have any effect on the temp, but then again I'm not climbing mountains, just rolling hills. Keeping in mind that this trans is cooled by a liquid/liquid heat exchanger that appears to do a pretty good job of keeping temps right where they want them. As soon as you get out of traffic and the coolant in the radiator drops, the trans drops back down to 200.

Now for the Empty Log after dropping the trailer off.

You can see where there is some intake heat soak as I left the RV dealer with elevated intake temps. The second bump in intake temps was me sitting in the drive-through at Chick-fil-a and the 3rd is sitting at the gas station, engine off (Lower overall temp).

As for the transmission temps, they are lower for sure, but I was also not in as much traffic, so the coolant in the radiator should have been slightly lower.

 

[Cujet]

Very cool! Interesting data. The trans certainly runs hotter. I'll bet the turbine inlet temperatures are also way up during towing.

 

[ctechbob]

Very cool! Interesting data. The trans certainly runs hotter. I'll bet the turbine inlet temperatures are also way up during towing.

Ohh, no doubt. Pretty sure there's not a sensor there unfortunately, that would be cool to look at. On the other hand, the motor isn't into boost as much as you would expect. There's plenty of times when you're just tooling along that you're either in vacuum or only a couple psi of boost. You'd think given the work it is doing and that you're only playing with 2.4L that it would be into boost almost constantly, but it's not.

 

[ctechbob]

Got to thinking, I might have to pull out Forscan and see if I can get to some additional data. I'm curious now as to what the PCM is doing with the engine-driven fan while all of this is going on. What I'd like to see is minimal fan command, which would mean that the radiator has a bunch of capacity to shed the heat without fan assistance.

Especially since the engine and trans both dump their heat into it I'm interested in seeing how they interact.

Geeky I know, but fun to find out.

--Edit--
And I meant 2.3L above, this is why I don't post with my phone.....

 

[tnt_motorsports]

boy that thing like the trans temp pretty high... I hate when my Ram goes over 175F.

Just my $0.02

 

[ctechbob]

boy that thing like the trans temp pretty high... I hate when my Ram goes over 175F.

Just my $0.02

That's where it is designed to run. Likely done mostly for efficiency, but also tightly controlling the temp means that the fluid is at a more stable viscosity for shift timing/etc. That's part of the reason some 10R80's shift like garbage until they warm up.