Oil Temp

Some guys will tell you 220 is nothing to worry about, while others will say it's a little too high, considering the conditions you describe, and you only need a little above 180 to boil off condensation.  

Not sure how long you waited to check oil temp, but you could have seen a slight elevation in temps due to heat soak.  Most guys will say head temps are the critical measurement, not oil temps.  I'm sure you'll do more testing as ambient air temps increase.  Samba has lots of discussions on the subject, with the expected disagreements, since we're car guys, right?

Do you have a fan on your extra cooler?  T-stat?  You can check your digital thermometer accuracy with boiling water.

Jim Kelly posted:

Some guys will tell you 220 is nothing to worry about, while others will say it's a little too high, considering the conditions you describe, and you only need a little above 180 to boil off condensation.  

Not sure how long you waited to check oil temp, but you could have seen a slight elevation in temps due to heat soak.  Most guys will say head temps are the critical measurement, not oil temps.  I'm sure you'll do more testing as ambient air temps increase.  Samba has lots of discussions on the subject, with the expected disagreements, since we're car guys, right?

Do you have a fan on your extra cooler?  T-stat?  You can check your digital thermometer accuracy with boiling water.

Paul was pointing out the fact that he didn't have any of the extras just a higher capacity sump.

I'll definitely check the thermometer with boiling water.... I'll do that right now.  I like having head temp, oil temp and pressure gauges. The obvious problem is not wanting to cut holes in the dash... or hang stuff under the dash. I guess there's no choice if I want to monitor my engine.

It answer the question, I shut the car off and checked the temp right away. I know the temp can go up after shut down.

Well, I thought water boiled at 212 degrees but my thermometer says it happens at 205 degrees. At least I know now how far off it is.

But that would say your thermometer was reading COLDER when you would have preferred it to have been reading HOTTER than actual.

Yeah, I wish it said water boiled at 230.

Paul:  looks like you need another thermometer that is more accurate and able to be calibrated to 212°F  How do you know that it reads linearly?  You don't.

Measure the length of your dipstick and get a candy thermometer at Bed Bath and Beyond that's the same length.  The better ones have a nut on the shaft right underneath the dial can.  If you loosen the nut it lets you rotate the dial to move it right to 212° in boiling water.  They're not too expensive and they duplicate the no longer available 356 dipstick thermometer from Mainely Custom up in Maine.

I tried one out of my wife's tool drawer (for Pete's sake don't tell her). Unfortunately it was to thick to fit the dip stick hole. Will the one from Bed Bath and Beyond be narrow enough? 

Paul, your thermometer may not be quite as far off as you think.

Water boils at 212° at sea level.

(At least it did prior to the Trump administration.)

That drops about a degree for every 500 feet above sea level you climb. Wikipedia (which is never wrong) tells me Phoenix is at about 1000', so, for starters, you should expect an accurate thermometer to show water boiling at about 210° where you are.

That might drop a tad lower on a day when the air pressure is low. Do you know a weatherman who could tell you what it is today?

I was once concerned about engine temps in one my previous Speedsters.  I contacted Henry about it, and he told me a story of when he and some others were travelling through the mountains.  One of the drivers kept pulling over, concerned about his engine temp.

They checked the car over each time.   The last time the fellow stopped, Henry disconnected the oil temp gauge, and told the guy to drive it and enjoy it.

So, that's another perspective on these air cooled cars.  Seriously, I don't think I ever worried about oil temps with my Ghias, Corvairs, and Beetles.  I think that perhaps these cars draw us into concerns that may not really be there.

My two cents worth, for what it's worth.

Bob, I think you may be absolutely right.

As far as a weather man goes.... you can't trust them

I'm still going to Bed Bath and Beyond

paul

I moved the pickup on the factory gauge  (Vintage) from the original place on the top of the block to the sump because it never gave much of a reading in the original place and it now goes almost to maximum on a hot day when I'm going 65-70. I added a numerical oil temp  gauge which I installed along with a CHT on the bottom of the dash. It reads 190-210 on hot days. The pickup for this is in the original place. This ,along with the CHT, allows me to safely monitor the temps. Someone on the forum,I think it was Gordon, explained that since the oil goes thru the cooler sump temps will be higher than higher up in the block. My engine is a 1914 with an additional 1&1/2 qt sump.

Joel

Thanks Joel, I know we need to make sure the sender and gauge are compatible. I have a Dakota digital gauge in my drag car (head temp). I may get one for the speedster, especially after I finish building the 2180. I pretty much have all the parts now. The machine shop is finishing up the heads and I should have them any day. They've been saying that for a couple of weeks.

I still need to figure out where to put the external oil cooler and filter of course. I've been reading that most of you are putting it (cooler) in the rear driver's side wheel well. Does anyone have any pictures of how they mounted it? In the past, I've had the oil go from the pump to the filter and then through the cooler before going back to the block. I also continue to use the stock cooler.

Paul;  Something else to consider is the oil viscosity you're running.  I know there are heated discussions about this on the Samba and Shop Talk forums, but a long time ago I did a DIY test, running 10W-30 on a day like yours on a highway, came screaming into the garage and did a quick oil change to 20W-50 and immediately re-tested on the same stretch of highway.  It happened to be at about sealevel.  The oil temp (on a dipstick thermometer) dropped 5°-7° just by changing oil viscocity, because the pressure switch for the oil cooler works differently with different viscocities.  IIRC, on my 2,110 that got me from 220° down to just under 215°.  Ultimately, I ended up full-flowing the case and adding an external oil cooler (the process is up under Resources/knowledge base at the top of this page) and I have found that, overall, my engine runs cooler (around 200-205°) with the external cooler and 10W-40.

The first step, though, is getting a dipstick thermometer in there that you you can trust and truly knowing what your baseline is.  But you know that.

For more info, look here:  

https://www.speedsterowners.com...s-engine-temperature

Paul, here's a thread where I posted some pics of my cooler and filter installation (which was done by @Anthony).

It's a tight, but efficient, fit that works very well. Once everything's installed, it's hard to get a camera in there to make clear photos of how it was done, so hope this helps.

In the same thread, @Robert M  posted some photos of his cooler, which he mounted under the car.

For what it's worth, my 2110 never gets past 1/3 on the cheapo VS multi-gauge. I'm running a full-flow oil-pump cover into a Mocal sandwich plate which at 180 degrees, opens fully to allow oil into the Setrab fanpack cooler.

I have a thinline (1 1/4 quart) sump) which, with the (shorty) oil filter, lines and cooler, combine to give my motor 5 1/2 quarts of 10W40 Brad Penn lubrication/cooling.

I put my cooler in the driver's (left) side wheel-well attached to this mount I had made.

Here's the mount attached to the frame

here's the mount and cooler in the wheel-well

Very cool, thanks guys.

"very cool"  well, yes that was the point.

Glad Sacto got you calibrated on the physics of altitude -- saved me the trouble.  Given his data, if you are only off by 5 deg F, that's PDG.  As to the dash gauge, "normal" in my understanding is pretty much a needle straight up -- IF the gauge and sender are compatible.  Not sure what actual temperature that comes to, but there are VDO oil temp gauges that are calibrated (printed on the dial) with degrees that I have seen.  maybe these are only vintage real Porsche gauges --??--  No idea where to get, or how expensive. And lastly, to help you avoid getting super stressed about this, the better oil temperature gauge here is probably your nose.  If things are really too hot, you are going to smell it. Use that as your Final Answer.  I routinely give my engine grill a sniff after a run and the engine is off.  Have gotten quite used to what is "normal" here, certainly nothing like burnt oil, but rather hot aluminum, or something like it.  Very unique aroma you only get w/ AC machinery.  IMHO.

Fyi- these guys purchased Mainely Design after the owners retirement, and still manufacture/sell their products. ( like their  temp dip sticks and wheel balancer)

http://www.precisionmatters.biz/about.php

Give them a ring... Very helpful guys.

cheers

Oh.. And you can have Palo Alto Speedometers modify/re-screen the face and calibrate your temp gauge to a specific VDO sender... So you can read specific temp.

Lfepardo posted:

Oh.. And you can have Palo Alto Speedometers modify/re-screen the face and calibrate your temp gauge to a specific VDO sender... So you can read specific temp.

those are beautiful gauges but those guys can't spell worth a darn...or maybe I'm not German enough...

gasolin?

I read an article several years ago about a very well known Porsche east coast  restorer, who drove his original Speedster to the 50th anniversary  of the Speedster on the west coast. Watching the temp gauge peg driving through the desert and pulling over several times to allow it to cool off, he finally just placed a piece of tape over the gauge with no I'll effects.

Here is my favourite combo

Chuck, that sounds like Rainer Cooney.  He regularly drives his Pre-A Speedster to the West Coast events.  We were on a club ride to Vermont a couple of years ago and one of the other drivers (also of an original Speedster) kept pulling over to "let it cool off" after every long up-hill, causing the rest of the caravan to stop over and over.  Rainer used the "sniff test" that told him everything was OK, but the driver didn't trust him and kept stopping.  Finally, Rainer reached in and disconnected the guys temp sender wire.

Everything was fine after that.

Rainer's Speedster looks pretty stock, but he's running a trick 356 engine with Crank-fired ignition and EFI that puts out over 150hp  One beautiful car...   

The only give-away is his ECU console on the tunnel:

Do you know any more about that 356 engine, Gordon? Even with crank fired ignition and efi that's a lot of hp for a smaller engine. You'd have to be revving well over 7,000 rpm for that kind of power. Has it been stroked? If it has I'll bet there's a ton of headwork and maybe a bigger exhaust as well... Al

If I had that much invested in an engine and someone pulled the wire for the temp sending unit that person might be missing some fingers before the end of the trip. Just sayin'.

Paul....I did a lot of testing on oil temps and posted the results on here but I have no idea how to retrieve them. Maybe someone else on here could do that for me.

Anyway, here's a few photos of some of that endeavor . Those Dakota gauges you have are really good. I temporarily connected a rotary switch to them so I didn't have to buy more than one Oil temp. and one CHT gauge, just the senders. I took oil temp readings from the sump, the oil pressure relief plug (VS's choice), before and after the stock oil cooler, before and after the external oil cooler in the L/R fender well and from the cover plate for a type 3 dip stick tube.  I chose this last position for my sender because it gave the most acurate and instant readings.    One of the pics shows a MOCAL Sandwich between the filter and it's mounting as well.

Last thing...I have a very accurate temp probe/thermocouple wire that will go down the dip stick tube easily.  I'll send it to you to check your temp. if you wish.  Just be careful and don't wind it up in your fan belt..  While your at it you can test your under hood temps. on the street and on the highway...Bruce

To get back to oil viscosity, I believe oil that is too thick bypasses the cooler leading to higher temperatures.

Gordon,

It may have been Alex Finnegan from the Paul Russell Company.

Chuck

Oh, Alex!  Very down to earth guy.  Long time sales and broker guy for Paul Russell.

Alex and his wife always run the club's August Loafer's Lunch cruise to some Lobster Shack up on the North Shore.  It is so popular we had to start a sign-up list for it.

Bruce:  here is your oil test results:

https://www.speedsterowners.com...l-temp-study-results

Michael McKelvey posted:

To get back to oil viscosity, I believe oil that is too thick bypasses the cooler leading to higher temperatures.

I ran 20w 50 all last summer and I'm running cool (190-205). Seal the engine compartment thoroughly so that air only comes from the top deck lid vent, make sure that no oil lines or filter are too close to exhaust, make sure your oil cooling fan isn't sucking hot air off exhaust or cylinder heads and blowing it through the oil cooler. 

edit: The 205 temp was in 105 degree heat and I have a 2110.

Will Hesch posted:

Lfepardo posted:

Oh.. And you can have Palo Alto Speedometers modify/re-screen the face and calibrate your temp gauge to a specific VDO sender... So you can read specific temp.

those are beautiful gauges but those guys can't spell worth a darn...or maybe I'm not German enough...

gasolin?

 

I took this photo off of the RM Auctions advertisement for an original numbers matching car that was auctioned off in 2012. The gauge clearly shows the word "gasolin" on the fuel gauge. I looked at some others and I swear it said "tank" but the print was too small to make out clearly. It's possible a variety of gauges may have been used but I'd have to check my official "Porsche 356" book at home.

Almost all of the original combo gauges had 'tank' for the fuel portion.  That one above may be a repro gauge.

My combo gauge says Tank not Gasolin. Apparently only the European cars gauges had Tank. 

 I was just on the precision matters web sight and noticed they had a really cool 356 temp dip stick for $78.80. Then they had a Type 4 version that was $54.80. They look pretty much the same. Does anyone know why the price difference or why I shouldn't get the cheaper one for a type 1? 

Paul, quit asking such silly questions.

Of course the Porsche dipstick costs more, it's for a Porsche!

I noticed the same thing and thought: "I'll save the $30+ and buy the VW one."

The Beds Bath and Beyond unit is probably much more reasonable anyway.

So will both of them work on a Type I????