Not full blown limp mode . but there is a noticable difference in power the higher the temp goes .

Knock on wood, but I hardly ever see 220. And I don't baby the vehicle.

220 is, indeed, "bad". It is well-documented on the forum that oil begins to lose viscosity at 220. One of Modshack's old threads.

Over at bob is the oil guy, that number is more like 260+. 220 is nothing to worry about.

Would tapping into the stock lines work to keep room free'd up at the filter? Just Tee off the pre and post factory lines and run to a second core? This was my original idea since hose, two tees and a core cost next to nothing.

Pardon the crude pic


http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ps6b66be69.jpg

The lines that you are referring to are coolant lines. The factory cooler is an oil to coolant, oil cooler.

Correct, the factory oil cooler is nothing but a sandwhich plate with coolant that is about 20-30 degrees cooler then normal oil temps. There is actually no extra lines or an actual cooler such as the aftermarket ones. Its just that plate that has coolant running through it at a slightly lower then oil temp.

Just saw that now thanks. Wow, ill be pulling all this off and making my own.

If your really daring you could get do a custom coolant to oil cooler. A few of us have considered it but never taken the leap.

Laminova Oil-Water heat exchanger

not sure about price but I think it takes too big of a heat exchanger to do that and will most likely need an upgraded radiator as well.

If you get limp mode at 220 deg, something is definately wrong with your car. I had my car up to 265-70 at the track and no limp mode, that's when I back off and let car cool down. After 34 row cooler and stock cooler, my track temps dont go over 265, normally hovers around 255. I will try to shroud it and fan it next, would like to keep temps around 220's at the track!

:iagree:

sounds like heat soak

So with the stock cooler hooked up and an aftermarket 34 row do you run a short or long filter?

I've got a 34r gtm oil cooler. There's no option of a longer filter. There's barely enough room to get the stock length filter off without taking oil bukkake. The sandwich plate takes up the room you need for a longer filter.

Even with no stock cooler? This guy did it but with no stock on there. Not sure how much room is there from this pic.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ps4b75e6e6.jpg

I've got a 2011, so no oil to water cooler on there. With gtms sandwich plate, you don't have enough room for a longer filter. Maybe other brands of sandwich plate are thinner.

Ahh, yeah that's probably true.

However the guy in your pic did it, there's not a lot of room. I'd just run a stock sized filter.

Just keep on driving that the z until you reach 2-3k miles on the odometer you'll notice everything start to get smooth.
My z runs very sluggish at the beginning it fills so tight and the engine seems to have a hard time reving more than 5k but know I have to tame her she is wild.:tup:
But the oil cooler 25 row if you only do occasional track is a must.

Over at my mechanic's shop, (he builds and maintains Bob Sharp's racing Nissans), 220 is *extremely* worrisome. I tend not to cite references from "Bob the Oil Guy" and prefer folks with lots of track time.

Agreed. No way Limp Mode is occurring at 220, something else is going on. I thought Limp kicked in around 260+?

Here is the graph I was referring to. And it's a great DIY as well.

Look at the viscosity level at 220.

http://www.the370z.com/diy-section-d...ttsa-pics.html

Last night I was driving around and it was in the upper 90's and my car was at 220 the whole time. This is not exterme. One thing I do notice is the car likes running with the AC off way better than with it on. Maybe thats the sluggish feeling OP is talking about.

I don't think the size difference between the Mocal thermostatic plate and the non-thermostatic plate is a big enough difference (or any at all) to affect filter size/access. Like you, I just found that using the smaller (stock sized) filter gave me more room to maneuver/remove later.

I thought about it for a few minutes when I first got under there and realized how tight things were gonna be. I considered just running a short piece of coolant hose to loop one end to the other (input to output), but it just seemed like a bigger mess than just adding the new plate on top. In the end, if it doesn't leak (and hasn't so far...), I'm happy with the outcome. Temps dropped to 185-195 (city and highway) at 95-97 degrees outside temp, when I was operating at 210-220+ for the same drives.

I tried yesterday when installing mine. In theory, I could have gotten the longer filter in there, but it would have given me about 1/4" of clearance between the end of the filter and the front frame rail. I just chose to use the smaller (stock sized) filter. Bottom line, I think you can run the longer filter with both sandwich plates, but it takes a specific routing of the cooler lines.

With that little clearance, getting a longer filter on and off would be a pain in the ***. I'd just go oem sized. Even if there's a little clearance with the longer one installed, you've still got to thread it on.

Well, I'm not a professional mechanic or a petroleum engineer, but how the hell is 220 degrees "extremely" worrisome?? Hell, pre-cooler, I could hit that easily, and every high performance car I've had in the last 20 years could too. It's only 8 degrees above the boiling point of water, where we need oil to be to boil off h2o and other liquid contaminants......?? Not trying to sound like an a**, just can't see how that temp is freaking people out.

Yeah, I wasn't going to touch that. 220 is not an issue, and the graph in the link he posted is questionable without the source. Bob is the oil guy is full of fluids engineers, and for extremely technical analysis of oil I'll trust them. For mechanical things I'll trust a mechanic.

+1 I saw that and was wondering the source or credibility.

Third post by south ark . the coolant temp is part of the problem too . http://www.the370z.com/engine-drivet...on-timing.html

It's a Steibek Curve. You guys will actually find it on Google.

And the entire issue here has to do with the VVEL and it's extreme lubrication requirements. So unless every high-performance engine old guy has owned in the past was running a similar setup as a VQ37VHR with VVEL, I don't get the point. 220 won't kill your engine, but the oil clearly loses viscosity to where it is below the manufacturers specification.

It's the same reason Nissan markets it's Ester Oil. It is for it's friction properties specifically for lubricating the VVEL.

What does vvel have to do with anything regarding temperature vs viscosity loss?

Could be. What was the OP running? Every track I've ever raced on demanded just water or water plus water wetter ( or engine ice since I think its like WW). It does cool better than coolant and safer if you crash since water will evaporate unlike coolant will be slick. I'm going to dump half my coolant and put in a guys special race/summer only blend with water wetter. Should keep it cool and not freeze come winter.

It's in the second paragraph:

"TORQUE CUT CONTROL (AT HIGH ENGINE OIL TEMPERATURE)
The ECM receives engine oil temperature signals from engine oil temperature sensor.
To avoid VVEL performance degradation, the ECM performs the engine torque cut control at high engine oil temperatures.
If engine oil temperature is too high, engine oil viscosity will change. As a result, engine oil pressure is
decreased. This control affects the VVEL operating angle by operating the VVEL actuator sub assembly.
If this control is operated, engine performance will decrease, then maximum engine speed is reduced a bit (Various levels of Limp Mode depending on temp).

Old post from the 370Z.com--- Nissan has a white paper out on the VVEL and Ester oil patent for the particles it needs to protect VVEL system.

--The white paper on the DLC explains Nissan's quest to not only use DLC on engine surfaces, but to employ it where boundary lubrication is extreme. As you might know, when the oil film breaks down from shearing or reaction between two high load surfaces, the hydrodynamic lubrication begans to diminish and contact between the surfaces occurs under boundary lubrication. This is typically when most engine wear occurs. Conrod and Main bearings rely on oil pressure to prevent this from occuring and maintain hydrodynamic function. The VVEL system has no direct means of high pressure lubrication between the drive shaft and the Rocker Arm link which encompasses the drive shaft lobe. It makes sense that Nissan would want to employ their all-carbon nano additive with this system to prevent premature wear on such a high-load surface. Even if the drive shaft were hollow to allow oil to be pumped through it to the linkage in much the same way that oil flows through the crank to the journals, this si a small surface with high pressure. Nissan's own white paper and patent both show how a DLC nano-additive could be used to protect these surfaces.

This also explains why Nissan has the default safety-mode with high oil temperatures. An oil's ability to resist shear and sustain hydrodynamic lubrication under pressure is a function of viscosity. As pressure increases on the lubrication surface, viscosity must increase to maintain a hydrodynamic function. As the oil heats up, viscosity lowers, and boundary lubrication ensues. It makes sense that nissan would be very aware of this and th detriment it could cause to the VVEL mechanism. The new, patented ester oil is a natural safe-guard.--

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Exactly. But let's not let it devolve into a Nissan Ester vs Synthetics thread...that has happened waaay too many times in the past. :icon17:

That's good info. I understand that. My question wasn't really clear. I get that vvel is a massive source of heat, and it's very sensitive to lubrication issues. My point was that we were discussing at what temperature does oil experience a significant loss of viscosity. I find it hard to believe that 220 degrees is a problem when we need the oil to be 212+ just to burn off any condensation in it. That's a very narrow window.

Not my intention. It alludes to the issues surrounding the lubrication aspect of VVEL for Chuck's post.

I understand the VQ motors have lubrication needs that a standard pushrod or even standard o/h cam motor may not have, but until we can get a specific centistroke minimum threshold established (Nissan factory oil at operating temps??), who's to say that any high performance oil, in a reasonable weight range, wouldn't work under "normal" conditions? I just switched to M1 0w-40 yesterday from factory fill, mainly because I liked the results I got back from Blackstone when running it in my LS7. Apples to oranges, yes, but I have no hard data to say it shouldn't work fine in the VQ, especially with a 25 row cooler.

BTW, I realize Nissan recommends (at least that's what I've heard) ester oil, but the previous owner of my car showed me that every time he went in for an oil change in the first year, they used a non-ester oil. No warranty voided, so I'm wondering how critical the whole "ester" thing is anyway.

I know, I know, here we go again with another oil thread. I apologize, but it seems we inevitably end up there.

I agree and for street use 220 is not going to affect the motor in a negative way. Nissan placed the limp mode much higher to begin with.

The OP is not hitting that limit in any way. Hopefully he will chime in with a report from his dealer. My guess is the car is fine unless he has pulled some specific codes that are affecting performance.

I can tell you that my '09 hits some sort of wall (significant loss of power and acceleration) sometimes when I've been driving "briskly" at 65+ speeds for about 45-60 minutes on Houston freeways in the summer. That's the only condition where I've experienced it -- feels like a fuel line restriction; kind of like someone suddenly transplanted the engine from a Dodge Neon into my Z.

My temp gauge indicates about 220 when this happens, BUT it goes away after a few minutes of idling after exiting the freeway; except that the temp gauge usually stays at 220 for longer than that (it happened yesterday, and fixed itself once I hit stop and go streets -- oil temps never fell below 220 until I got home). This makes me think it's not _directly_ related to oil temperature, whatever it is.

I do think it's temperature related, though, because it never happens below 215-220 -- except it doesn't happen every time oil temps hit 220.

I've seen the oil gauge indicate as high as 230-240 in heavy traffic without noticing the power loss.