WHAT IS NORMAL OIL TEMPERATURE ON A 330 GTC?

My oil temperature gauge reads about 110° C when fully warmed up. Coolant is about 185°F, so not overheating. What is the range for oil temperature and where is the best place to shoot an IR gun? thanx steve

 

Steve, in my experience, engine oil temp is generally lower than water temp. The oil temp is mainly a function of engine revs at durations; meaning, you cruise at high speed for an extended period and your oil temp can come up to same level as your water temp. As far as IR reading, I think the most accurate reading would be at the oil sump.

john

 

Steve,
Are you certain on degrees? One is Metric, the other (coolant) is USA.

Normally oil is cooler than water in a road car, if yours is really Centigrade, too hot for the road. Racing, well that's another story.

Regards, and HNY!
Alberto

 

@swift53 and John Vardanian thanx for your prompt response....I knew I should not have used both notations of temperature in the same post. Sorry, so I'll just be happy with a "C" in 9th grade composition, and report in degrees Kelvin next time. But yes, those were written correctly. The car is not raced, but I'll admit to driving her pretty hard, tho' not over 5K RPMs. Clearly, I need to get both oil and coolant temps, contemporaneously with an IR gun and stay consistent in the measurements. thanx again and Happy New Year. steve

 

Steve,
Are you saying that your dash gauges are mixed (WATER TEMP in °F and TEMP OLIO in °C)?

 

No, just a failure on my part to be consistent in my notation. It was originally delivered to Milano. All gauges are metric. the coolant temp gauge reads high so i keep an eye on it in degrees F by my IR gun. s

 

Steve, the oil temp is reasonable, specially if driven hard. My race car would see around 250 F.
but it has 2 XL oil coolers.
I think you are OK.

Regards, Alberto

 

Thatsa what I wanted to know. thanx steve

 

Steve: Does your car have either the twin separate oil coolers or the Daytona style cooler in the bottom of the radiator? Early GTC's had NO oil cooler at all.

 

no aux oil cooler. %&&*%$#@(
s

 

Steve: chassis number?

 

thanx Dyke....#8995

 

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Aye, your oil temp, according to the gauge is lower than mine..tho' coolant about the same.Time to take an IR gun to the sump to learn the truth. s

 

I just came off of an engine rebuild also

 

Looks perfect to me. In a hot summer with hard driving your oil temp. could easily get up to 120C. You shouldn't be worried about that. As long as your oil pressure doesn't drop while keeping the revs everything is just fine.

 

OK, drove her pretty hard and took immediate readings with my trusty IR gun (no need for license nor instructions here in Tx). No schadenfreude here, but a gorgeous day, ambient about 65° F with low humidity. No A/C Coolant temp shot at thermostat and oil at sump, as close as i could get to temp sensor.

Coolant by gauge: 90C/194F by gun: 72C/163F

Oil by gauge: 110C/239F by gun: 88C/190F

My conclusion is that my gauges read high. This was the first time I shot an oil temp, but I've taken the coolant temp many, many times and the gauge is consistently higher than the IR gun. Thanx so much. steve

 

So all these temps (even on the gauges) seem perfectly fine to me. I am not a super experienced Ferrari mechanic, but like to think I know the theory of how such things work, and if you are running with zeal, but without an external oil cooler, yeah, the oil is going to be hotter than the coolant.

Regarding the use of the IR gun, it is a good way to get objective confirmation of *relative* temps, but unless you have some way to calibrate for temp-loss through the walls of the block, and for the radiation characteristics for the surface that you are reading off of, you really can't trust them for absolute numbers. I would not (for example) even trust an IR gun for relative temps if the surfaces were not of the exact same finish, and the exact same level of cleanliness. I actually have tried to do calibration of IR guns using surface mounted thermal sensors, and the surface finish makes a huge difference...

Looking at your numbers, 90C seems pretty normal for coolant. 110C seems a little on the high side for oil, but without an oil cooler, that seems expected to me; there must have been a reason why Ferrari added coolers later. So to my eyes, the impression is that your gauges are not far off (or at least are calibrated similarly to other vintage Ferrari gauges), and the difference with the IR gun is mostly an artifact of where/how the temp is being measured).

 

@gcalex what you have said makes sense to me. These old, expensive and valuable cars bring out the worry wart in me. steve

 

Oh, man, tell me about it. I watch all the gauges like a hawk when I'm driving.

BTW: Kudos for giving your car some "stick"; I bet a lot (majority?) of these cars have not seen 110C on their oil for decades...

 

Steve: You can always "tune" your gauges by installing resistors in the line from the senders. We do it as a matter of course with cars. Remember, automotive gauges are there to give you a "suggestion" of what is going on.

 

that is why most military vehicles only have a warning light and no gauges ( so during my german military time from 1976 until 1979, only the SLT 50/2 with the watercooled V 8 from MTU had a gauge and a warning light for water temperature. but had big problems with the gearbox temperature and for this the first edition not even had a warning light.

 

I found that the modern “superseding” oil/coolant temp senders from the popular suppliers read quite high relative to the original. Never thought about adding a resister to fix it, but that seems like a great solution.

 

Thanx Dyke et al. What size resistor should i start with?? thanx steve

 

Steve: 10 ohm, 1/2 watt. They are super cheap and you will need a selection to fine tune the gauge. Probably you will end up between 5 and 35 ohms.