Interesting Observation - Wear

Here is something I noticed about my track car that is not my Ferrari. First of all, here is some background. It has a turbocharged engine. I run 1.1 bar boost for about 320 hp at the rear wheels, considerably more than what the engine had from the factory. Two years and 15K miles ago I replaced the rod bearings. I do 7 track events each year and use the car as a semi daily driver. It has 150K miles on it. It was purchased in 1996 with 89K on its clock.

I have always used Mobil 1, 15w-50 and change it every other track event meaning the oil gets changed every 2K miles. I drive the car to the events. Every time the oil has been changed, I have noticed a certain amount of ground up metal on the magnetic oil plug. Just before the last oil change I installed a second oil cooler in series with the factory cooler. I did this because I had always experienced a drop in oil pressure at the track after 6-7 laps. Pressure would fall from a pegged 5 bars to about 3.5 if I would let it. I always slowed down when it dropped to 4 bars so it would drop no further.

The last two track events have been with the second oil cooler installed. With it installed, there is no more observed oil pressure drop. The gauge remained pegged at 5 bars no matter how how hot it was or how hard I ran it. The water temperature also remained lower. This morning I changed my oil. Lo and behold, there was much less ground up metal paste clinging to the magnet on the oil plug. This is a marked improvement.

 

Once I measured the temperature before and after the new cooler which is first in line. There was about a 35 degree F drop for just normal highway driving. The temperature leaving the original cooler was only about 115 F. This particular vehicle does not have an oil temperature gauge. Admittedly, highway driving is light duty.

The used oil filters are 'clean' to the naked eye. I always slice them open after use to have a look see. I slide a magnet through the folds to check them after visual.

I have owned another vehicle that had a magnet in the oil plug. It accumulated paste just like this one does.

Particles could be settling out in the new cooler. Time will tell. What I have reported could be anecdotal. But I definitely like the lack of oil pressure drop and lower coolant temperature. The oil pressure drop happens on all vehicles of this type when run on the track. I'm an instructor with a couple of car clubs and generally am assigned students with a car like mine so I have seen many temperature and oil pressure gauges at the track in hot weather.