Greg Fishman

Steve,
Do you have a suggestion for a particular guage that works well? Does it fit in the stock location?

Will,
I had my car out that same weekend and the morning temps were in the mid 40's. I idled the car for 5 or 10 minutes and then it took a lap or two at half throttle before oil started flowing to the coolers. It can take the car 20 minutes for the thermostats to open up just idling. During a race weekend when I have to sit on the grid for a while I bump the rpms to around 2000 with occasional blips and that seems to decrease the time needed to get the thermostats open. Also if in the paddock I cover the rear deck lid with a blanket to increase the air temps, don't know if that helps or not though.

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Greg:

I use the factory gauge and sending unit from the 993 RSR as both items are direct replacements.

Greg Fishman

Thanks Steve. I take it you keep or can get those? Sounds like a worthy off season project.

chris walrod

You can say that again, even out here with 80F temps. Takes the car a long time for the thermostat to open, and also to get that oil back up to temp.

When I change oil, upon start-up, I cover the decklid with a blanket after about 5 minutes of idling to get the thermostat to open so I can check oil level.

I have also covered the decklid to check for both low and high speed fan operation. Works like a champ

CMMTracknut

Will, it is ironic that as I clean out my oil system, I cannot remove that same fitting no matter how hard I pull(don't want to break so not pulling that hard). It pulled out on its own twice? While Steve Weiner is building RS Motor-zilla I need get all the oiling parts plus tank out. Got the coolers and lines up front, anyone know if there is a third bolt holding in the tank? When your line was fixed the first time was it easy for him to remove the return lines from the block? Was there slack in the lines? Maybe we should both buy the guages with actual numbers on them.
C
PS Sorry to hear about Grattan. Good thing it wasn't the motor letting go!

Alan C.

Am I correct in assuming that the Cargraphic cooler is in series with the factory cooler? If so, when the thermostat opens it pushes not only the cold oil from the stock cooler but also the cold additional oil from the Cargraphics cooler back to the tank. On a cold day that would be a substantial change in the delta T of the oil in the tank. Also the force required to move the cold oil through the twin cooler setup.

On my RSA after a twin factory cooler install when the thermostat opened on a cold day the temp gauge would almost drop back to the bottom. On really cold days I had to put tape over the cooler on the driver's side to get reasonable temps.

Alan C.

CMMTRACKNUT, I took the lines out of my block and it was a major pain in the a--. It was also hard to get one of the lines back into the block. The front lines were held in by a disc with a bunch of holes drilled into it. If the line is pushed all the way into the block there is some room for the line to gain momentum if it tries to travel forward. It might be enough to allow the disc to bend.

Will

Hello, everyone.

First, thanks for all of the great feedback - as usual, Rennlist pulls through.

My mechanic, Tim Pott at Eurotec, in conjunction with Steve Weiner, has sorted things through and he and Steve are of the strong opinion that Greg and others are right - the thermostat likely opened up to nice, viscous, cold oil at high rpm's, resulting in overpressure and blowing the line out.

I'll certainly be changing my pre-grid routine to include a longer warmup period, but to help things, Tim is going to install a thermocouple on the oil line near the front of the car (away from the warmth of the engine) and install a temperature gauge in the cockpit. That way, I can easily monitor when the thermostat opens the line to the front oil cooler. Of course, one could watch the temp gauge (I have a numerical one) and wait to see the temperature drop when the thermostat opens, or one could feel the oil line in front of the thermostat to see when it gets warm, but if it hasn't opened when I've gotten strapped in and busy with grid procedures, I want an easy way to check without having to get out of the car or constantly look at the regular temp gauge. Plus, it's cool to have more gauges!!

So, my track friends, let your car warm up fully in cold weather (or warm), and stay below 4500-5000 rpm until your thermostat opens. Driving with your RR tire drenched in hot oil is a sure-fire way to run with the turtles!

Again, thanks to all. I'll post something on the auxiliary temp gauge when I get the car back.

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Oh, heck yes,..... No worries.