Oil type and temp Questions (houston area)

wstar

It's a lot more complicated than that even. True steam (water in gas form) is invisible. The "steam" you see rising from your coffee cup is steam that is already re-condensing back into water as it is cooled by the surrounding air. The degree to which water will steam off before the boiling point is also dependent on the humidity and temp of the surrounding environment.

The reason we call 212F the "boiling point" is because at standard atmospheric pressure, this temperature forces water to boil off. Any less and you're guessing at how much may have evaporated at a slow rate depending on local conditions.

I don't know the exact minimum point where you've heated the oil sufficiently to get rid of most of the water, but I think a few minutes at 220 on the gauge is a good guideline with some built in fudge factor. It's definitely past water's boiling point, and it's definitely not too hot for normal engine oil either.

It's too easy (especially in cooler weather) with an add-on oil cooler on the 370Z to make short trips (or even long highway-only trips) and never move the needle past 180. I've even seem some winter highway trips in TX where I had trouble keeping it above 160 without downshifting just to heat the oil up. A blockoff plate is a simple solution to help in those kinds of conditions.

Usually if I know my trip won't get the oil to 220, I just run in a lower gear for a while until I get there.

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