Engine Oil Temperature, What's Normal?
 

Took my ZR1 out for only 2nd time today and noticed engine oil temp
up to 202 degrees. Is that normal? My 2003 C5 only went around
165-170 degrees but it did have an aftermarket cooler. Thanks a bunch
for the info. Chris

Yes. On hot summer days, it can go quite a bit higher. When I burnished the brakes, if I recall properly, it went to 230. My only other Corvette was a Z06 and the Zr1 definitely runs hotter. I have seen a couple of threads on this the last couple of years.

About the same as mine.

I find about 192 to 200 for highway driving, all types of weather. About 20 degrees warmer in traffic or other slower driving. Warmer than my previous Z06, which seemed to run at 165 under the same highway conditions. Not a bad thing, in my view, as I always thought the Z06oil temp was a bit too cold.

A combination of the piston oil squirters and the relocation of the oil cooler to under the car near the oil pan is likely the main reason. With the intercooler heat exchanger, the coolant radiator, and the A/C condensor up front, it was probably a bit crowded up there to keep the oil cooler in the same location.

The engine builder for my race car (avatar) cringes if I don't have 210 degrees oil temperature before hitting redline (tough to do after only one warm up lap on a cool morning before the green flag flies). And 220minimum is his preference.

If you start hitting 265-270 because you were running it really hard in warm weather, let it cool down to about 240 before shutting it down. It won't hurt anything.

That's normal around town. I saw almost 270F today at my first track day with the ZR1 with a 70F ambient temp. I was ragging her out and she liked it.

Thanks for the GREAT info.:thumbs:

since oil is cooled BY water in the ZR1, oil temps go up much quicker than they did on the Z06 during warmup, and will NEVER be lower than the water temp after warmup.

I noticed a positive correlation between engine RPMs and oil temps, even if you are simply cruising on the highway, the higher the revs the higher the temp, im assuming that has something to do with the manifolds heating up the water/oil exchanger surrounding area thus driving the oil temps up.

however I seem to like the oil temps on teh Zr1 better, in a Z06 having a thermostat would lower the water temps and enable oil temps to go WAY cold, I remember about 60ish degrees Celcius after a full warmup on the highway.

Well, I'm no expert on ZR1 oiling systems, and Lord knows I've been wrong a time or two in my life, but try as I might, I can't see the coolant inlet and outlet lines running through these pictures of the LS9 oil cooler. Maybe there's another oil cooling mechanism in the system that I'm unaware of? If so, please enlighten me, because this one looks like air cooling to me:

http://www.vetteweb.com/tech/vemp_07.../photo_18.html

http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/te.../photo_10.html

http://www.superchevy.com/features/s.../photo_37.html

And it seems like my oil temperatures frequently run below my coolant temperatures, depending on the driving conditions.

Anyway, given that's it's still pretty early on the West Coast, I just enjoyed a few minutes looking for water/coolant lines to the oil cooling system under my car (which I didn't find) while still in my bathrobe, so thank you for providing the opportunity for that new experience. :cheers:

I have noticed the oil temps climb much faster to operating temp that they did in my buddy's C6 Z06. That is a good thing. Few things are worse on an engine that ragging it out when the oil temp is still cold and oil pressure is sky high. It took forever on the earlier (and maybe later?) C6 Z06 models to get up to good operating oil temp. Glad GM saw fit to fix that problem.

I noticed yesterday my 2004 C5 Z06 oil temp runs around 220 on a 97F day in downtown traffic. My old E39 M5 which also had an oil temp gauge recommended no RPM operation above 4500 until the oil temp reached 170F and stated 265F as the maximum for "track operations."

I think those fittings are the coolant lines and the oil flow passages are integral to the castings connected to the block.