Everyone with oil temp issues

DIGItonium

Alright guys, here's my experience. My Z is a typical daily driver and rarely race (street or track), but once in awhile I'll get a tad spirited as long as I keep in control for the sake of safety for everyone on the road. You don't need to drive fast to have run, right?

Anyhow, I've monitored the oil temp gauge during my usual commute. Initially it would hover at 180 deg. Once I get spirited with SyncroRev (still keeping revs below 4k regardless of how much trottle), the temps would over around 200 deg. The manual states 280 deg. is the absolute max.

Outside temp is 77 deg. with lots of wind (20+ mph).

I can only imagine what summer would be like, but that's my typical commute with freeway driving no more than 65mph.

Overall, conservative driving (paranoia) with 50% throttle to 4k rpm at times and lots of SynchroRev fun.

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smartbomb

Technosquare did not write the article for 370z.com, I did. Why the oil gets hot is my opinion and a posible theory on why the VQ37VHR has high oil temps. Technosqaure just makes the kit and we tested it to see if it works.

If you don't do track days or other sorts of motorsports and run good synthetic oil and change it frequently, then you should not have problems. No need to get excessivly paranoid.

Most track driven cars should have an engine oil cooler. If you participate in motorsports then get the cooler for sure. If you don't, then don't worry so much.

260 degrees is where the properties of the bearings in the engine start to degrade, remember these are soft metals with low melting and softening points. Now there is quite a bit of reserve built into engines so 260 degrees under street driving condtions won't harm the engine. On the track there is a posibility. 280 degrees as the maximum safe temperature on the street is quite reasonable.

If your 370Z has an aftermarket turbo, you are hot lapping and your oil hits 260, time to stop. Same if you are loaded up with performance parts with your rev limit set higher. If your are hot lapping in a stock car and your temp hits 260, time to slow down and cool the oil. If you are in traffic on a hot day, the load on your engine is light and you can drive ok.

The VQ37VHR is not the only Nissan engine to run high oil temps. The RB26 and the SR20 do as well and those engines have pretty good reps.

SoCal 370Z

Definite rep points for an excellent article, and I have corrected my post. The issue would not be of concern if others who are driving in everyday situations were not overheating (see prior posts), but they are. You live in SoCal, and you know what traffic is like on our freeways...need I say more? Also, I always run synthetics just because of their higher heat related breakdown point, but Nissan is pandering their ester oil that I understand is not synthetic.

And from your article:

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Why I NEVER say NO to the Panda Lou Fusz!!!

smartbomb

There is an engineering reason for the ester oil. An ester is a synthetic, its is a heavy alcohol and not derived from crude.

The VQ37VHR uses a DLC (diamond like coating) coated cam follower, at least the version in the G37 does and I am reasonably sure the 370Z version of the engine has DLC coating as well. The Nissan patented version of DLC coating has an affinity to esters, meaning it attracts the esters to its surface on a molecular level making it even slipperier. DLC coating are used a lot for high end motorsports and Nissan has been using them for several years on cam buckets. The new Nissan DLC is uniquely hydrophilic in its attraction to esters.

So the special Nissan oil actually helps the valvetrain work smoother and quieter. I have head reports that if you put crappy oil in a VQ37VHR, the VVEL system get noisy and clatters but anyone putting crappy oil in this motor should be shot! There was a discussion on our forum about this that an Infiniti master tech referred to but I am not spamming for our forum out of respect here.

So I don't believe that you absolutely have to run the $300 factory Nissan oil change but strongly believe you need to run an ester based synthetic or at least a good synthetic. This is not new to the high performance car market, the Z06 and the EVO have filler caps that say synthetic oil only.

Not to spam but if you guys have technical questions, I am on my forum every day and here only when someone brings a topic I might be able to help on to my attention. I will gladly do my best to help answer questions on either place.

Zeto

As for oil I heard Eneos works well. Would you recommend an oil with a heavier weight?

smartbomb

I run motul 300V on all of my high performance street and race cars. It is an ester based oil. I have had good luck with it. My race engines go about two seasons between teardowns which is pretty unheard of.

For the wife's car and our regular stock cars I run Mobile one.

For the 370Z I would run light oil for regular street driving but 15w50 for track use or spirited driving. Its sort of a trade off, the additives that make for a wide viscosity range also tend to cause sludging and break down sooner.

I think a Z needs 3000 mile service intervals.

Its interesting the 330 turbo BMW's had no cooler when they were launched but had to add one when customers started to experience high oil temps.