What temps do your 308's usually read??

water 180*,oil 195*.....sitting still for a long time water 200*,oil 215*..............your half way mark is 130*? mine is 195*

 

Traffic Jam at 85-90F outside temp at sea level:
H20=195F
Oil= 210F

 

The best water Temp for my father's 308 Vetroresina is 60°C.

 

Before i replaced the thermostat, my 77 with 32k on it read about 150 water temp and oil temps were 180. I have seen a few posts discussing long warm up times and sub-normal, (195 f) coolant temps, which were solved by installing new thermostats. A common mode of slow failure is for the thermostat to not close fully, which leads to long warm ups, or to open too much too soon, which, i believe was causing the car to run in the 150 range. Someone diagnosed this problem as a "lazy thermostat".

I would not be surprised to see a lot of this problem, given the horrific cost of the new thermostats.

Generally, while driving, after warm up, the oil temps follow, (or lead), the water temp. This depends greatly on how hard you are working the engine, vehicle speed, (air florw over the radiators) and ambient air temps.

After replacing the thermostat, the water temp would come up to 195 in a few miles and the oil would come up to about 185-195

I live in the relatively cool, (50-75 degree north coast), so non spirited driving would allow the oil to run 150-160 and it would take forever for the oil to get hot enough to boil off any condensation or gas dilution, so i installed a Mocal thermostat, which allows the oil to bypass the cooler untill temps come up to the set point of 180. My cooler started leaking while on a trip to the southland. A replacement was not to be had at that time, so i had a bypass pipe made and limped home with no problems. The only cooler i could find was a Ferari replacement from GTCar Parts in arizona. When ordering the unit, he mentioned that it had a smaller core than the original, but that this was the recommended replacement. After receiving the cooler, it had about 50% of the stock cooler area, so i went with a Mocal cooler of similar,(stock), wich was handy, since it had -12 AN fittings, as did the thermostat. Now, the oil comes up to 185 in about 6 miles.

Tracking the car in moderate temperatures, i see 230 coolant temps and 245 oil, when driven very hard. This is with the stock radiator, two 12 inch spall fans with a sheetmetal shroud directing the air through, not above the radiator and a small 440 cfm fan pulling additional air through the oil cooler backside, (not as effective as i had hoped).

hth,
chris

 

It's generally pretty cold here in Seattle:

180-190 H20
180-200 Oil

Just about any time of year.

 

I use redline "water wetter" and that really helps alot and of course bleeding the system

 

My 77 runs half way between the 1st mark and the 195* mark on the water and my oil runs about 195. This would be in 80* weather in the north east.

 

My oil temp needle barely moves from the left corner....even after 30 miles or 30 minutes driving. I've been told there is so much oil in the system, that it takes a while to heat it up. I wonder if I should check it out (the oil temp gauge...) granted we still have not had any day above 90 F around central/south texas. What U think guys?

 

Just resurrecting this thread after trying to search for info on proper oil temp readings. My concern is that on my 82 GTSi lately the oil temp and water temp have been quite different from each other. Now that the weather is much warmer here, I'm getting 120C (car is a euro... 250F) oil temp while water is happily at 90C (195F) dead-center on the gauge. That's usually with 'spirited' driving, so relatively high rpm and fairly deep into the throttle. One example was yesterday on a steep, long grade on a fast road (70mph), with ambient temp 90F or below... <90C water and 120C oil. During more leisurely parts of a run the oil temp will drop to around 110C. I'm just wondering why the water and oil temps are so different, and if the creeping oil temp is a harbinger of some impending failure. I have a newly rebuilt water pump and new coolant, and as I say the water temp almost never registers above 90C. I'd appreciate any advice! Thanks in advance!

 

I wish today 95F? I had paid more attention to the oil temp. I must admit I perhaps incorrectly put all my cards in the water temp. On the earlier carb cars you have to bend your head left and down to see the oil temp so it just isn't "there" all the time. The water temp is.

It's been in the 90s and pushing close to 100 here lately. Last summer I had a sticking thermostat -- not closing all the way and not opening all the way. Not good. It bothered me when the water temp was approaching 215.

This past winter I got a new thermostat and while in there had the water pump rebuilt. Now, it warms right up any time of year to about 180. In the warmer temps this summer, and it has been *hot*, I have seen it hover at 195. I have seen it creep just a hair beyond the 195 mark in the middle but no farther.

From searches it sounds like the cooling system is engineered to be just adequate and in an old car many things go wrong.

This post is the treatise on the subject:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=204897

And by treatise I mean note Birdman's post .

 

Hmm... unfortunately for me, mine runs much hotter than any of yours so far. I do have new proper thermostat, new tank cap, new larger rad, new better fans, still both water and oil gauges show needles approaching the max. What could cause that, and I'm not driving hard.

 

Don't pay any attention to what an electrical gauge says as far as an actual reading until it has been checked by a mechanical gauge. Comparing the readings on your elec gauge to somebody else's elec gauge can lead to repairing a problem that does not exist.

 

When the thermostat and all is working properly, agree with water 180F and oil 195F... sitting still for a long time water 200F and oil 215F.

Also agre with Chris though my numbers were a bit lower when tracking, perhaps due to using the Nick Forza radiator and removing the AC junk out of the car, and so 215F coolant temps and 225 oil (ambient temp being 85F).

As other have noted, if you have not changed your thermostat and are having issues of TOO LOW temps, it is time to change it out (easy to do and cheap enough).

 

I suspect my thermostat is stuck open but I don't mind the temps I am running. It seems regardless of the gage reading my car runs just a hair below the turn on temp of the fans. I can drive in 80-90* temps and the fans will rarely turn on. My water and oil temp read at the 1st notch on the gage or around 165-170*. This is regardless of whether I have the AC on or off although when the AC is on the single fan keeps the temp down. So for the type of driving I do (40-60mph range) I'm going to leave it the way it is or if I do decide to change it I'll get the Wahler 165* unit to install. Just my take here , 77 308 GTB

 

Sounds like my '77 308 GTB as well. Oil temps will usually run about 170*/180* as well. Water runs about 170/180ish unless I get into traffic then it will climb to 195. I am not 100% confident in the accuracy of the stock gauges anyway. Just determined that my oil sender is bad. Never goes over 80 psi, mechanical gauge says 70-120 depending on rpm and temp.

 

120 psi is waaaaay to high. The relief valve should be lifting somewhere around 85. That much pressure is just asking to rupture an oil filter or gasket and pulls a considerable bit of power from the engine.

 

Even cold? The car was not even close to being warmed up.

 

With the current 100F TX heat, my water and oil can hit 210. It doesn't go beyond that in heavy city traffic, so I'm not overly worried. In cooler months, generally 185-195.

I'm thinking about getting a Nick's Forza aluminum radiator...I'd like to see the summer temps at no more than 195.

 

The max pressure is determined by the oil pump relief valve pressure. According to Ferrari, that pressure is between 71-85 psi at 6k rpm. The oil pressure relief valve is what controls the maximum pressure. The relief valve does not know the difference between hot and cold oil.

Ferrari points out that the pressure can be adjusted if the pressure is ouside of the spec so check the pressure with engine warmed up and see if it is in spec or not. Cold pressure will be higher than hot at idle, for example, but max pressure in either case should be the same since it will be limited by the relief valve.

 

Thanks for all the great feedback so far. When I dug this up and reposted I was looking for clues about the 55 F temp difference between my water temp and oil temp. Other than a faulty gauge/sender, is there any other cause of such a difference that I should be checking? Thanks!

 

I get similar differences in my temps. My water temp sits around 90C and the replaced oil gauge runs around 240-250F in the hot Texas summer heat. I replaced the oil temp sender (cheap and easy part) and got the same results. I then bought a touch-less temp reader and get much lower temps.

Although I dont fully trust the infra-red temp gauge I figure 250F is not high enough to really cause real issues...

Aaron

 

The Nick radiator is very well made and mounts right up. Am glad i did the changeover as the original is really long in the tooth and pinholes happen. Due to tracking, i added a bit of wire mesh to the front of it to help protect the radiator from debris and even if you are not tracking, adding it in very easy during the changeover and provides a level of protection.

See http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=100196&highlight=nick+forza+radiator
FYI: The thread link above, i did remove the smaller mesh so only the larger mesh remained and my thermostat did indeed need, and was promptly, changed. And yes, had a great four days at Watkins Glenn International and the car did great all four days both temp-wise and overall reliability

 

Very nice mesh install, well worth doing.

With the Nick's radiator, does your car run significantly cooler on the street? Mine's street-only, installed a new thermostat a couple of years ago.