Everyone with oil temp issues

frost

Shame we are losing people already, but I totally understand.

tbonesteak

GG nissan. I will make sure to let them know that I was supposed to have made the purchase 4 months ago but held off due to this oil problem and now most likely won't be purchasing AT ALL. I will tell ALL my friends, coworkers, family, etc about this car and tell them to STAY AWAY AT ALL COSTS. I have a LOT of people who turn to me for car advice too so this is def not good for nissan.

I really did want to upgrade from my s2k. But whenever i turn back, the s2k never fails to deliver. I drive the living PISS out of it every second, do massive track events, burnouts, auto x, and the thing laughs it off and wants more. Not a single plastic clip has broken and i park it under 100 degrees of direct sunlight everyday for the past 3 years. All i do is change my oil, which btw does not even burn a single drop of. I know the nissan is a much higher performing car and I was very excited....but wow nissan, first with the 350 and now this.....pathetic.

semtex

Any chance that the extra gear in a 7AT is making a difference in temps? It is 7AT vs. 6MT, after all. I also agree with wstar that there may be differences in shifting behavior between the two. I know I sometimes have a tendency to leave it in a lower gear where I'm cruising with the rpms at 4k or higher, just because I want to have that instantaneous torque available. For example, maybe I'm anticipating that I'm about to open it up, so I opt to not bother with upshifting when I know I'll just need to shift back down a few seconds later. Or maybe I'm approaching a turn in 3rd gear. I'm going at a speed that warrants upshifting into 4th, but I leave it in 3rd with the engine wailing at 6000 rpms for a few seconds longer than seems natural because I know I'm about to nail the brakes and downshift into 2nd anyway. A 7AT isn't going to do that if it's left in D. In fact, even in manual mode, some drivers may not leave it in a lower gear like this, not when shifting back down is as easy as a flick on a paddle. (Plus they may actually enjoy flicking that paddle, right? So the more flicking that's necessary the better.) Well, over the time of a, say, 20-min spirited drive, my habit of leaving it in a lower gear in anticipation of an upcoming need for torque is probably going to translate into additional heat, and it'll add up quick, especially if I suddenly hit traffic and lose the cooling ability of free air flow to the radiator.

But having said all that, I have yet to see my temps go over 245. At the same time, however, I'm lucky enough that I have yet to run into heavy traffic at the tail end of a spirited drive. So take from this what you will.

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"There are no small accidents on this circuit." -- Ayrton Senna
316.8whp & 248 ft/lbs (Dyno Dynamics) | 319whp & 256 ft/lbs (DynoJet) (04/23/10)
Stillen G3 CAI, CBE, Pulley / F.I. LTH / GTSpec Ladder Brace / Setrab Oil Cooler / UpRev-tuned by Forged Perf.

wstar

I do the same thing you do in my 7AT (re holding onto lower gears to use the torque). In general, I control speed with the gears and gas pedal when at all possible, and I like have the revs up in a torque-happy area even in traffic so that I can use the engine to match speeds with the guy in front of me easier (whereas most native AT guys think of the gas as the go button and the brakes as the stop button, totally different way to drive).

I'm kinda stuck at home today waiting on Fedex with my gaskets so I can get them in tomorrow, so I won't get the chance for an extended drive during the day today. At some point this weekend after I get them installed, I'm going to put the camera back in my car for some sound clips anyways, I think I'll go out and try to push the oil temps up really hard and see how things are really doing lately with regards to the oil temps on my car, given my higher mileage and new synthetic oil, etc.

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Journal thread / Car setup details

SoCal 370Z

As wstar, and others have mentioned, there is a myriad of factors playing out here. Including that Nissan could have changed something that we do not know about in production. This means that certain model combinations as well as certain VIN numbers could be higher candidates for overheating. This is the reason documenting all matters we help us reach a better and faster conclusion leading to a resolution. What has yielded definitive results is that a properly sized oil cooler has solved the situation.

Having Nissan void a warranty because I installed an oil cooler is not a solution for me. If there are others installing an oil cooler, I would at the very minimum closely replicate or at least use the same Setrab oil cooler, or the actual Nissan oil cooler kit, should you end matters in a court dispute with Nissan. Nissan's sizing of the cooler core:



2009 Nissan 370Z Touring: Oil Cooler Install and First Service

If you are following the Edmunds blog above some of the most logical, and damning comments are those regarding the Sport Package option as you would think—at the very least—that the Sport Package would be inclusive of an oil cooler.

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wstar

Well, I got my gaskets in so there was no point sitting around the house any longer today. Hot and sunny outside, so I went for another oil temp test drive. Car's ambient air sensor in the info display was in the 88-92 range throughout the drive. Even Intake air temp (on a scan tool) was ridiculously high, from the hot pavement and heavy traffic. I saw that go as low as 105 on the highway, but it ramped out to the 150's sitting in dead stop traffic backed up at traffic lights. The heavy friday afternoon traffic was not ideal conditions for running the car hard, but on the other hand it gave me the chance to see if temps would run away shutting the car down into traffic after a hard run too.

First off, I ate some lunch at Sonic and left the car idling the whole time (about 15 minutes) to heat-soak everything. Oil temp stabilized around 210-215. Then I went out and drove on the small streets in stoplight traffic. I made my best effort to stay above 4K when it wasn't totally absurd to do so. I'm sure everyone thought I was an idiot cruising around at a deafening 4-6K-ish in 20-30mph steady thick traffic, but whatever

I was only able to get up to about 230-235 doing this, because there were too many stops waiting on stoplight traffic. Of note, however, is that every time I got stopped, the car would bring itself back into the 220-ish range just idling in hot traffic.

Then I went up onto the highway and got a couple of hard WOT runs in (one on the initial onramp, and another shortly thereafter exiting a toll plaza). That got me back to 240-ish cruising on the highway. Then I went ahead and downshifted and kept the revs in the 5-6K range (with occasional peaks above 7K when passing other cars) for a solid 4-5 minutes. This gradually brought the oil up to 260, which is where I decided to call it quits. No sense going over 260 willfully, imho, that's getting into dangerous territory, but it seemed likely that I could have kept on pushing it higher if I just kept doing what I was doing.

At that point I grudgingly forced myself to just flip it into D-mode and drive light the rest of the way back home. D-mode w/ light throttle tends to keep the revs way down, around 1.5-2K-ish when not accelerating. The car quickly brought itself back to about 245-250-ish before I could even exit the highway to U-turn back. By the time I got back to a steady-state speed on the return highway leg, it was back to 240 again. By the time I exited and got home (the furthest point in this trip was perhaps 5 miles from my place), it was back to 230. Given the extreme heat-soak it went through, I went ahead and popped the hood and put a fan in front of the car to idle it back down. It came back to 215 in about 5 minutes and seemed to stabilize about there for a couple more minutes, so then I garaged it and shut it off.

My overall thoughts:

Yes, I need an oil cooler. Days like this (and much worse) will be the norm here during the summer, and on a longer drive, the way I drive, I can easily see myself being oil-temp-limited. That said, the temperature never ran away from me, even when 'stuck in traffic' and such. The oil temp was purely a function of how hard I was abusing the engine at any given time. At any time, if I backed off the revs and the throttle, it brought itself back down in temp accordingly. I'm still not panicked about it, but today definitely moved up my plans to get an oil cooler installed sooner rather than later.

Edit: also, given the variations in oil temp behavior I've seen on different drives in different climate conditions, I think climate differences are playing a bigger role in this than I would have initially guessed.

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Journal thread / Car setup details

spearfish25

Agreed. Next I'd like to see the relationship between ambient temperature and oil temperature. I'm curious to know if it's linear. e.g. if my car hits 240 in 70F weather, would I be at 260 with the same driving in 90F weather and 280 if it's 110F outside?

Given that the water temps never change on the gauge, the oil temperature variations seem to be indicative of the car's dependence on airflow around the engine. It would be interesting to know if a ventilated hood and/or more powerful radiator fans would make a difference just as the oil cooler does.

Musashi

I drove on Thunderbolt today and did full 25 minute sessions. It was extremely hot today in Millville, my temp gauge was reading over 80 degrees. My oil temp did not go past 260 with the Stillen Oil Cooler. The car quickly cools off once the revs go down. The oil coolers do work. I doubt a factory fix would be as nice. Plus the majority of so called "mechanics" working at Nissan dealers are total hacks.

Zeto

You don't think that 260 even with the oil cooler is excessive heat?

Musashi

Peak 260.. I don't care as long as my revs aren't restricted. It cools very quickly, unlike stock. Get that cooler hooked up yet?

Zeto

I'm not even back in the States yet

spearfish25

Still sounds pretty hot.

RCGsupra

I wonder how many other cars have oil temp problems that nobody even knows about. How many sports cars don't have oil temp gauges and protective limp modes? Kind if makes you wonder.

ZYUL8R

Id bet the 350z had high temps during track days. It had no limp mode associated with oil temps. I tracked my 350z quite a bit...i always changed the oil before the event, then immiediately after.

Josh@STILLEN

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