Importance, water vs. oil.

[jdub]

OK, you're oil temp is starting to rise. What are you going to do about it? Pretend you don't have anyway of checking the coolant temp. What are you going to check? Are you going to check you're cooling system first? I bet you will.

There's a stock coolant temp gauge that will tell me that just fine...it shows coolant trends in plenty of time to stop the car before damage is done. He was asking about after market add-on gauges. I can see wanting to know a more precise oil pressure perfectly...the stock gauge is not that accurate. We don't have an in cockpit fuel pressure, EGT, or oil temp.

If my oil temps are way high...I'm going to stop driving the car until I figure out why. The same as if the coolant over heated. That sir is common sense...something that seems to be lacking among some folks

 

[mkIIIman089]

I've found that the oil temp will immediatly skyrocket if the coolant temp goes up. So although the oil temp will always run higher then the coolant temp (from my findings at least) , it will make a BIG jump if the coolant goes up just 10C above say 90C; easily alerting you if your motor is overheating.

Oil temp without a doubt.

 

[MassSupra89]

Here is what I think is the most important----Gauge placement. Why have any gauge if you can't see it at a glance, or a shift of you're eyes. This does not mean craning you're head trying to see what gauge your trying to identify. Gauges are meant to be tools to moniter engine/vehicle operation, not for eye candy.

Placement is not for "eye candy" other than the fact that I dislike the A-pillar location very much, no gauges will be going there. I will most likely be putting all except my boost gauge in the upper dash area (stock CC and Ashtray location). Boost is right on top of my steering column, has been working wonderfully for me there, and I do not plan to change it. All gauges also have warning lights and playback. No worries about missing it because it's in my pass. a-pillar next to my ps2 and neon lights because it looks cool

 

[Supracentral]

I knew this was going to happen. Don't be so defensive. I stand by my post.

I wasn't getting defensive. I know where my data and opinions come from, I just wanted to know the origin of yours. There are a LOT of people around here who will argue until they are blue in the face with someone for hours on end, and then say "oh, well I was just sayin'..." after wasting everyones time.

I don't know you, I just want to know what the source is for your data and opinions.

Are we talking about race cars or normally/agressive driven street cars? 99.9% of the people on this message board, myself included do not drive their vehicles on a race course. If these posts are dedicated towards a racing enviroment I stand corrected and apologize.I must have missed that bit in the original post. I fully understand the relationship between oil/water temps/oil chemistry under extreme conditions. In my original post I said normal driving conditions.

I drive my cars hard, all of them. The reason I mentioned the road course is that's where you see the extremes. What works on the road course works tenfold on the street.

And the primary focus of this site is modification for performance. So discussing road course, race track use is appropriate. If the damned thing was stock the factory instrumentation would be sufficient.

Ya better pull over Gertrude, the oil temps are getting dangerous. What about the water temp? Don't worry about it, it's always in the red.

They may not be race cars but I doubt many are driven by Ma & Pa Kettle. :icon_razz

 

[bluepearl]

There's a stock coolant temp gauge that will tell me that just fine...it shows coolant trends in plenty of time to stop the car before damage is done. He was asking about after market add-on gauges. I can see wanting to know a more precise oil pressure perfectly...the stock gauge is not that accurate. We don't have an in cockpit fuel pressure, EGT, or oil temp.

If my oil temps are way high...I'm going to stop driving the car until I figure out why. The same as if the coolant over heated. That sir is common sense...

OK, sir with the common sense, you still did not tell me what you would check if you're oil temps were running on the high side.

 

[MassSupra89]

What are you going to check? Oil level, quality, contamination, leaks, a rod through the block lol, coolant level, quality, temp, basically everything you can... on the side of the road

If you throw a CEL do you only check the 02 sensor? there's more to monitoring an engine than just one system...

What I believe SC and jdub are trying to say is that oil temp is a better indicator and will tell you faster than coolant. And I can completely see their reasoning.

 

[jdub]

Simple...my oil level. I can be low on oil, the temps rise due to less volume capacity, and the pressure shows as good.

Next, my oil cooler...is it warm? Or is it clogged? Do I need a bigger one?

I'm also going to check the coolant...as said above, if your oil is hot, it's very likely the coolant is too.

I didn't say the stock water temp gauge was accurate...I said it was accurate enough
With coolant, if you see the trend, you have plenty of time to pull it over. (BTW...nice edit)

 

[starscream5000]

If he is so worried about temps of his coolant and temps of the oil, just get both gauges. Having accurate aftermarket gauges for just about everything you can measure on you car with them was NEVER a sin, it's pretty damn smart and can be good preventative maintenance . Which measurement would I rather look at? Well, oil temps can vary per load, rpm and horsepower being put out of the engine at any given time. Water temp will not vary as much because it doesn't play as much of a cooling role as the oil does. So to answer my own question... I'd have both for the peace of mind .

 

[MassSupra89]

If he is so worried about temps of his coolant and temps of the oil, just get both gauges. Having accurate aftermarket gauges for just about everything you can measure on you car with them was NEVER a sin, it's pretty damn smart and can be good preventative maintenance . Which measurement would I rather look at? Well, oil temps can vary per load, rpm and horsepower being put out of the engine at any given time. Water temp will not vary as much because it doesn't play as much of a cooling role as the oil does. So to answer my own question... I'd have both for the peace of mind .

Don't have space or enough plug ins on the control unit for both. Oil temp will do me just fine, I will see a change in oil temp. before coolant, and by that time I'll have noticed it, and so will the the stock gauge.

 

[jetjock]

I'm not going to get into this other than to say why use so many gages in the first place? Get an engine analyzer instead, a small box with an integral or remote display that samples all these inputs and more, either displaying them at will or in a scanned format with user programmable high and low alarms for each variable. There are several brands out there. If you're willing to spend the money some will even scan and alarm on individual EGTs in addition to everything else. Dunno about you but I've got better things to look at than gages when driving and letting the box watch over this stuff beats a human doing it any day of the week.

 

[Nick M]

Not too confident in "gut feelings" myself

I don't feel with my gut, fingers are much more sensitive and have control.

 

[Mr.PFloyd]

We don't have an in cockpit fuel pressure, EGT, or oil temp.

or wideband/air fuel, or the toss up between boost gauge or having a voltmeter, or brake pressure, or etc, etc....
now you can see my problem of where the hell i am going to put all my gauges. Oh and another addition, i still think having water temp is more important then oil temp, but that didn't stop me from buying an oil temp gauge 10 minutes ago :biglaugh: