jody stowitts

I live in SoCal, could this green man you call Brad come over and help me check my oil too?

sml

i cant get the car sufficiently hot by driving the car ... except on a 100F degree day on a track when revs do not drop over 4000rpm for 4 laps.

so, yep, a long drive is a waste of time as far as warming the oil to check the level ... as I still have to leave it idling in the garage for another 15mins to get the oil sufficiently hot.

crg53

So you are saying your engine/oil does not get hot enough to open the thermostat under normal driving conditions. All you need is about 185 degrees of oil temp then you are ready to check the oil. The sticker in the back says to check the oil at 194 degrees, for that I need to idle my car for a few minutes after it has been driven, but for just checking the level, an open thermostat is good enough.

August West

Purely from an academic standpoint, but what if your thermostat is stuck open and that your front oil cooling circuit was always in play? Not to say that yours is, sml, but that would lead to a car not getting hot enough.

What is your normal operating temperature? Mine's usually planted around 8:00 on the gauge.

jody stowitts

As an aside, my intuition tells me its important to get out and run it for quite a while @ higher RPM's (4000+) to get it hot enough to open thermo. and recirculate all those 5 or 6 quarts of oil that have been hanging around "up front" uncirculated because of not enough high RPM driving. I started doing this more frequently because a lot of my driving (I'm not a racer) is VERY moderate to mild, naturally due to the cost of gasoline, and often times my temp. gauge doesn't get to 9 o'clock, and I don't KNOW what configuration the bimetallic bypass mechanism in the thermo is in. So in order to be certain, I've got to do the "get it up to 9 o'clock+ and see it go back down a bit" routine to prove its opened up, and then give it a few miles more miles to recirc. all of that "maybe uncirculated" oil. By the way, I'm very aware of how "ridiculously overconcerned" this will sound to most who read this, but hey, we all have to assuage our psyches in our own way. You'll laugh, but when I first got the car, I had to go up front and feel around the right front grill area for heat and/or listen for the sound of the radiator fan to make sure the thermo was actually working. Oh well.

sml

i found a big difference in the oil level between the approx 185 deg and 194 deg.

pretty much any driving or traffic (with thermostat open) and then a short idle, then it would stay below the red on the oil level.

leave it idling for 20mins until the temp guage was about 9 o'clock and it would shoot up about midway.

so i think you need to go hotter than just opening the temp of opening the thermostat.

sml

yep ... around 8, but checking oil level at that temp seemed too early.

leave it idling to 9 o'clock temp and the oil level would shoot up quickly.

Vandit

How about for the people who have modded the sensor on the oil cooler, lowering the threshold for the high speed on the oil cooler fan. I wonder if at idle the car would even touch 9:00.

I plan on doing that mod (already bought the resistors) sometime in the next month or so since this past summer I was seeing temps approach 10:00 when sitting in Texas summer traffic.

ras62

To shorten the process take the car for a short drive, on return leave it running at idle and cover the black air vents on the spoiler. This will cause the temp to rise quicker. While the oil level can be checked at the 8 o'clock mark (half to 3/4 on the gauge is good) it is better to remember the oil level will continue to rise a little as the temp goes to the 9 o'clock point. At this point the front wing opposite to the filler should be warm as the oil flows from the tank to the cooler.

meek

With you on that, SML. My car will certainly register just above the red mark after the thermostat opens, but doesn't give a 'real' level until the car in properly hot; upto the 9 o'clock position on the temp. gauge. It is amazing the expansin of the hot oil makes to the gauge reading.

I live in a temperate climate and getting the temperature of the oil up high takes some reallly hard driving, especailly in the winter. So, I am happy as long as my gauge reads just above the red mark when the thermostat opens. There is plenty of oil in there to lubricate the engine. Always assumed the rest is for cooling.

Porsche964FP

It's all there. Idling is bad for the cams. Don't get stuck in traffic. If you do switch it off or rev above idle at the very least.

sml

easy to find problems .. but how about solutions .... i dont have everyday access to the track on 100F + days, so how can we check the oil level then if we cannot let the car idle?

Harry Apps

Doesn't your engine idle when you leave it running for a few minutes (not 20)? Regardless of the oil temp, I'm pretty sure that the idle period (and for the colder engines) was to allow the scavenge pump to move the pooled oil back to the tank so the dipstick can find it.

If you want to make a simple task easier, try putting some light-coloured heatshrink tubing on the dipstick.

sml

1. yes, but the oil will not be sufficiently hot if it only idles for a few minutes. hence waste of time checking oil level.

2. dipstick vs guage is irrelevant. if oil is not hot, then how can you check level? only way to get oil hot is a hot track day at 65000rpm, or idling for 20 mins whilst reading a good book.

J richard

Wow guys. There is always plenty of oil in a 911 particularly the 964/993 with the big cooler and oil lines, HALF of it is flowing around in the lines oil console and cooler. All that extra oil is for cooing purposes not just lubricant, it's a dry sump system that's pretty much the same since the original 901 that did it with 7quarts.
All that oil needs to be warm so the volume of oil is correct. So that means running the car to YOUR typical operating temp, that's what matters. And that means at least until warm oil has circulated through the front oil cooler you can feel the top of the fender or the cooler lines to verify. Most cars will throw off the top 1-1.5 quarts pretty fast. It is better to be running a little low than too high. An overfill is not good and can cause all kinds of problems. If you run it for two minutes and top off when the other half of that oil gets warm you got a problem.

Next time just get a blue paper shop towel. Pull the stick and wipe it dry. Dip it and then holding a dry towel flat in your hand lay the stick in your palm and roll it to one side. You will get a nice dark blue line on the towel where the oil level is...

That is all.