Engine cooling data from track use with LogR

Dave B

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Got to use the LogR app on my 2020 CTR 2 days ago with some interesting results. The car is very new (about 1250 miles) and absolutely bone stock. The track is one that I am used to and is not overly high speed and uses a lot of brakes. There is a drag strip part of the track where entry speed is the slowest (around 28 MPH and top speed is the highest (around 110 mph). I could not get the lap timer function to work, nor the data logging so my only information is what I could see on the dash, not necessarily peak temps etc. Fortunately I have an AiM Solo data logger (GPS and accelerometer based) which gives me very accurate lap timing with quick access to slowest and fastest speeds per lap as well as lateral G's so I wasn't worried about those functions from LogR.

Air temp was 70-74 F. Engine coolant temps did not go above 208-210 at any time. Oil pressure was never an issue, peaking as best I could see at about 68 PSI. Oil temps varied quite a bit. They quickly went to the low 240s and stayed around there but if really pushing hard would hit 248. At that temp I would back off a bit (not a lot) and the temps quickly dropped to 230. I wanted to run the last session until the car went in to limp mode but ran out of brakes before I could do so (topic for another thread).

I know the car does not have a dedicated oil temp sensor and extrapolates the reading, likely from a number of factors including pressure and coolant temps. My previous car which was a C5 Corvette Z06 would hit oil temps of 270 (real reading, not calculated) even with an in-radiator oil cooler if driven hard on the same track so the cooling of the CTR may not actually be that bad but given that I didn't get the car to limp mode, I don't know what the actual temp would be to trigger limp mode. Given that the engine coolant temp (true reading and not calculated) stayed pretty good, I doubt that that on it's own would trigger limp mode.

Obviously this is not the same ambient air temps you guys are seeing in California and the southern states but even in Canada we may have days at 96F in the summer.

So the question is, would a bigger radiator solve the limp mode issue or is an oil cooler necessary if oil temps are the actual trigger for limp mode? Have to weigh the pros and cons of potential drop in oil pressure when adding an external oil cooler. Also how much higher would the coolant temps be on a hotter day?

Small aside, what is the factory fill oil on a CTR? My sources at Mobil 1 insist that oil temps of 300 F and a bit higher won't hurt the oil but they obviously have no idea if those oil temps are ok with the motor. I do know that repeated use in GM LS series motors at these temps is not an issue but that Nissan puts the 370 model into limp mode when the oil temps hit 280.
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MadMage

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Dec 12th I saw LogR oil temps of 262F at Arizona Motorsport Park (4 reasonable straightaways and 16 corners). That was with an ambient temp high of about 66F and rapidly decreasing humidity from 70 to 32 percent.

No limp issues (except when I ran out of gas), no apparent heat soak.
 


 


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