You guys could save a lot of time. and experimentation by installing a quality oil thermostat. Pick your target temperature, buy a T-Stat for it and be done.

Here is a very nice, small high flow billet unit, click here => Improved Racing

Ed

I saw your post over on the FordFE forum. When you pull your sensor out and stick it in a pot of boiling water, if the needle on the gauge goes right up to 100 degrees Celsius, then it pretty much has to be a goofy result of the placement of the sensor in the pan. We've seen that happen from time to time on oil temp sensors. But you've pretty much got to do that test -- you can't just live with a gauge that gives you the wrong readings.:LOL:

See no evil?
https://www.corvallisadvocate.com/wp...lm-300x300.jpg

Yes, it's kind of like that TV commercial where the woman puts the sticker over her Check Engine light.:3DSMILE:

Not quite. In this case I know the water temp is trust worthy, and there is a significant temp delta between the oil and water temp gauges, plus I know the oil pressure behavior when the engine is warm enough to hammer. Perhaps I'm missing the value of the oil temp gauge?:confused:

Alright, you and I are not Morris chasing 200MPH.:cool: He needs an oil temp gauge, we can get by without one. That said, your oil temp gauge does provide good information on when your engine is actually warmed up (not just when the coolant is warmed up) and it will give you a little bit of advance warning if something in your mill changes. That's provided you know how it normally behaves when you are doing the things you normally do. That's where not having a working oil temp gauge leaves you short -- you don't know how it normally behaves because it never has. Having a working oil temp will give you a better insight in to your engine and its performance. Yes, you can live without it, but you shouldn't.

My ‘70s Alfa twin cam has had an oil temp gauge for the last three decades, and yes, it is a provider of useful information. I have always been careful about warming up the engine sympathetically, and never extending it until the oil temp is into its safe range…and currently the old Italian b@st@rdo has 255000km on his odometer.

Conversely, my neighbor, who drives a Porsche Macan 2.9 litre twin turbo, “warms” it as he’s backing out his driveway, and then redlines as he takes off down the street.

He’s short. So is the life of his engine.

Cheers!
Glen

Unless you're racing, you really don't need to know your oil temps. Did any of your other cars come with an oil temp gauge? Does it worry you that they didn't?

If the oil temp in your Cobra gets to 200*F, do you do anything about it? Or do you just say, "Hey, look at that". :)

I changed mine to a transmission temp gauge. Much more valuable info for me.

I like oil temp gages and have them in most of my cars including my newer Shelby GT350. They are a more useful indicator for me of when I can stop babying the motor/car during warm up, than an oil pressure gage or an engine coolant gage.

And for those of us with solid lifters, and aluminum heads on an iron block, your lash will start out less than your spec'd amount, then grow to be more than your spec'd amount, and then shrink back to the spec'd amount for hot lashing, all based on the thermal expansion rates of the different metals. It took me years to figure out that simple, obvious fact.:cool:

If you stated it, I apologize... But by any chance do you have an oil thermostat? I installed a Canton thermostat on my Cobra before I even drove it for the first time. I homemade an aluminum bracket for it and mounted it to the forward cross-member and plumbed it in with the usual AN braided line. I think ERA has a "rough drawing" of the plumbing schematic in their "additional tech" portion of the website. And in regards to the oil viscosity, which I know I'm gonna start a holy war here but... it depends on the clearances of your rod and main bearings and environment your driving your car. I personally built my engine for my car and can tell you that I run straight 40W but that can be another thread.

FWIW, just a few thoughts on weird oil temps:

1) The builder of my car actually had the water temp gauge sender screwed into the oil pan and the oil sender screwed into the hole for the water sensor. He actually drove it like this for ten years! Those gauges and senders are identical except one is labeled water and one is labeled oil. I thought I had a faulty water gauge because it was actually reading oil temp at the pan which is nothing close to the water temp at the top of the engine. It would also behave funny. The water temp would read about 180, but when you started driving above 3000 RPM for any reason, the water temp gauge temp would start rising very quickly and the only way to make the temp come down would be to drive easier to keep the RPM under 3000. When I asked the previous owner he said it had always done that and he had just gotten used to it.

2) I bought a new pan from Canton about 5 years ago, still not installed...LOL I had them weld in a new bung much lower so I could be sure the bulb was submerged in oil at all times. I did not like the stock canton higher location for the obvious reasons. To me it was barely in the oil at full, so if you were not at full oil level or driving aggressively you had a very good chance of reading the air temp in the oil pan. They liked my idea and told me they would consider a design change. I don't know if they ever did this going forward

Glen,
That made me laugh. Thanks.

I keep the revs below 3k at least until the water temp gets above 80C, and I usually confirm oil is at temp by making sure the oil pressure drops below 30 psi at idle before putting my foot into it.

I'd like to have a functional oil temp gauge, just not sure I need one.

Evan

I don't have an oil thermostat. I thought about adding one, but Peter recommended against it--just one more thing to malfunction. Whether that was out of true reliability consideration or just the PITA factor of installing one I'm not sure, but the oil seems to come up to temp in 5-10 min which is plenty quick for me. It gives the tires a chance to warm up a bit as well, which keeps me from ending up someplace I don't want to be.

So does the oil temperature in the pan differ depending on where the oil temperature is measured? I have an Aviad oil pan and the sensor is placed very low in the pan at about the same elevation as the drain plug. The oil temperature just barely gets to a point that I would call acceptable. I have an oil cooler installed and I blocked off air flow to the heat exchanger trying to bring the oil temperature up. It didn't come up very much. Plus the pan hangs down a little bit so that the lower 20% or so of the pan is probably in the air stream passing under the car. My hope is that the oil that is being pumped to the bearings is actually hotter than that which is at the sensor and what I am seeing on the gauge. Is this just wishful thinking?
BD

I would say your thinking is pretty accurate. Also I think taking the reading at the pan is cooler than it would be at the head, but I could be wrong on this. I blocked mine off with see thru plexiglass because I like the way the oil cooler looks

The question is, do you want to know the temperature of the oil in the pan after it has gone through the engine or after it has gone through the cooler and before it goes into the engine? I think a pan measurement is best. Oil takes much longer to rise than the coolant and a street engine with a 7 or 8 quart pan probably doesn't need a cooler. The engine likes the oil temp to be around 200+ degrees, if it's not getting there, running a cooler is a determent.

that makes good sense. I vote for the pan

Ah, good. Got to find something to laugh about these days.

Actually, I thought it might have elicited come comments about "the old Italian b@st@rdo" as most Cobra owners seem to think their car is a "she".
Never been able to work that one out. I do think mine (Cobra) is good looking, and although he hasn't fired up in anger yet, he is definitely masculine.
Maybe that's for another thread....

Cheers!
Glen

No, a Cobra is always a "she." Always.:cool: