Oil thermostats
 

Hello all.
What's everyone using for a bypass thermostat for your oil coolers?
I need one that has -12 capability.
I can't use anything that attaches where the oil filter boss is as I'm dry sump.
Thanks.

I had merc racing hp style, saw several big power engines in south Florida recently and asked why they didn't have them? Seemed odd. Simple answer eventually they fail, one less thing to break.

I'm thinking Ill need one to bring my oil up to temp in Lake Erie.
Who makes the one merc used?
Thanks,
Rob

Not sure, it's the same from hp500 to 900sc. I know what you mean with water temps being 60 at best, but I'm thinking with a properly sized cooler and some oil temp maybe it's not quite as critical as some may think? Just thinking if someone puts out a 1100 efi without a thermostat and that's their answer it's worth thinking about. I like thermostats but I get it that if it sticks and now oil temp keeps climbing to 300 that may be worse

Food for though, for sure.
Thanks for taking the time to reply man.
I appreciate it,
Rob

+1

I got to the point where I swear mine werent opening when I had a set of Derale's.


If the oil isnt hot you arent driving it hard enough.... LOL

I have an oil temp gauge to monitor the temp.
My concern is a long warm up period to get up to temp.

I had a small block ford in my little hotrod searay and it would take quite a while to get the oil up to temp (I had an oil temp gauge) and it had no oil cooler. If it wasn't for my temp gauge, I'd have gotten into the happy stick way too early.

What if you use a valve?

Set it up to run around the cooler then crack the valve open to run thru the cooler?

I just bought coolers with the thermostat/bypass attached, works well finally get some oil temp at startup/idle and keeps a perfect 220 at wot. I would recommend sizing coolers to your power level, I went a bit oversize for future upgrades and you can tell the stat does not open much and when it dies it's pretty quick.

What kind did you buy and were from?

Have you looked at the KE thermostat that is intergrated in the KE oil filter mount? It is a super part that holds the oil temp spot on all condensation issues disappear. Keith also used to sell a remote thermostat.

Mr Cool out of Detroit area bought them direct. Very good customer service
http://www.mrcool.us
CPH 700 or CPH 770 if you need PS cooler

Have to ask why -12 and not a -10?
And I would run a thermostat. KE

My feed from my dry sump pump is -12 and I don't want to choke it down.

Its going to get choked down some where. lol
Will be a lot easier to plumb smaller size. -10 will work fine. I feel like one of the ball breakers on another thread. have to laugh.:boat:

Theres been a time or two as to whether or not you need coolers at all especially running in the Great Lakes. Pulled mine years ago for replacement and went out for a weekend thinking I was gonna have to be idling the whole weekend and partying at the cove NOT. It was a good test to say the least. It varied Some depending engine load and rpm however I never went over 200 deg oil temps. That was a twin engine app with 454/485 hp's. Average cruising temps were about 185.

Last boat I bought to restore didn't have coolers on from the factory. It was a 79 with twin 454 330's. Ran hard across the pond before starting restoration. No issues.

It is what it is. These big power plants that seems to be the norm now a days I wouldn't consider going without sizable coolers though.

Buddy of mine kept loosing engines wiping main and rod bearings had no cooler. 600hp small blocks supercharged.
Run no cooler with any kind of power you will have JUNK when your done.

Guess I was fortunate. Again this was with much less power and monitoring oil temps.

vintage chrome look for " chrisf695 " on the board, or in swap shop. looks like he has what your looking for. it will accept #12 fittings too. ck. the link. gd luck

Actually, it's not going to get restricted anywhere. Lol.
Running a -12 line is no harder than running a -10. :angry-smiley-038:

I've got to get I touch with Ilmor today and tell them it was a big waste of time and would have been way easier for them to use a -10 when they built this engine originally. I'm sure they will appreciate the info. :lolhit:

I just got a canton, looks neat, high quality piece, have not installed yet, spring project, my oil temp never got to where needed to be..mine all in # 10

I`ll agree with ya, I experimented with my last warmed over Tyler Crockett 502`s , ran one motor with a Canton, the other without. Same thing with my current set up, took temp readings all over. Also put the stats in hot water to see how fast and when they open.. found some interesting unexpected results.


http://33outlaw.zenfolio.com/img/s8/...49237024-3.jpg

http://33outlaw.zenfolio.com/img/s10...48386359-3.jpg

http://33outlaw.zenfolio.com/img/s10...81164455-3.jpg

First let me say that I'm NO expert-- in fact it wasn't till later this past summer that I realized that I have an oil cooler on my stock 7.4 MPI -- Ok I'm not a mechanic.

However, there are a couple of questions and comments.

1. I think we all agree that oil works better once it is warmed up and of course you can get oil so hot that it starts degrading. But to do that it has got to get hotter than satan's nards in leather pants! I seriously doubt that any engine that is properly maintained will ever get close to that point- without something else breaking first.

2. My question is in the oil heat exchanger -- How efficient are these units - Lets face it even if you had 40F Lake Michigan water in April flowing thru a cooler I'm guessing that they wouldn't be much more than 25% efficient -- so lets assume that it gives you maybe a 20 degree drop in temperature. But that would be very short lived - since not all of the oil would continually be cooled to that degree before it was back in the engine. So how much really is being cooled and to what degree.

3. From reading a lot of posts at OSO most of the big guns are running synthetic oil thru these high horsepower engines -- Synthetic oil was made to take these higher temperatures, remain viscous without any loss of lubrication. So why really worry if you are running oil thru a cooler that doesn't cool the entire mass of oil that much -- the oil can take it

4. I can't agree more that ANY cooling of a fluid in an engine will help-- but are we splitting hairs here??

just thoughts and comments

3pointstar



3.

[QUOTE=ICDEDPPL;4265789]I`ll agree with ya, I experimented with my last warmed over Tyler Crockett 502`s , ran one motor with a Canton, the other without. Same thing with my current set up, took temp readings all over. Also put the stats in hot water to see how fast and when they open.. found some interesting unexpected results.


http://33outlaw.zenfolio.com/img/s10...48386359-3.jpg[/QUOT]

The middle photo looks like those are the KE Thermofilters...yeah? If so, what temp thermostats are yours set for?....and what interesting unexpected results did you find? thanx

I used to not run oil thermostats or water stats. My oil temp barely ever hit 140* on lake michigan. Took forever to get the gauge to even move off its seat. I currently run the merc HP filter heads with built in oil stats. My oil temp is 180ish at cruise, and 210 at wot. Never goes above 210 even when held wot for miles. The idea is to bypass the cooler to build oil temp. Once the temp is reached, the cooler needs to be large enough to keep the temp under control on long wot runs. If you oil keeps getting hotter and hotter the longer you keep the throttles down, your cooler is simply too small, or your pistons are glowing red. :cartman:

or both.

It looks like there is a newer design oil thermostat that came out in the last few years made by Hardin Marine, but the jury is still out on how well it really works. I guess the KE "Thermofilter" is no longer made from what I can see. My current thermostats in my KE's HP-6 thermofilters are at 212*.

I will need to discuss this with my builder as I am wondering if I should get the 180* thermostats for the KE Thermofilters---but if they seem to leak or allow a little or some oil into the oil cooler anyway, then perhaps my 212* are fine...especially in Lake Michigan water temps. I always thought the 212* were good for at least allowing the engine to burn off any condensation in the engine.

Does anyone know where or who sells the KE "Thermofilter" style HP-6 thermostats?

Hey mark. I think they all allow a bit of oil to flow thru the coolers at all times to prevent air pockets.

As far as needing to get oil to 212 to burn off condensation, I'm not sure its totally necessary. While 212 is boiling for water, at 180 you will still evaporate moisture. Think of a soup pot of water on the stove. At room temp it will stay full for days. Heat it to 175 and it will evaporate rather quickly.

It takes me all of 5500+ rpm for a bit to see my temp hit 210. Most days my oil temps get to 180 and that's it for the day. My oil stays clean and no creamy goo in the breathers or dipstick. I do not run water thermostats.

How's the boat coming along Mark!??

Got a buddy with the Harden setup on new 489's. Works like a champ. Downside is depending on access you would have to pull the motor if you had a desire to change to tstat or if it stuck open/closed.

That raises a great point.
Is the 180 degree t-stat the desired one for a marine application?
I assumed a 215 or so would be required to get sufficient heat in the oil and burn off condensation.
Maybe I'm assuming incorrectly. Would it be a bad thing if the oil temp hovered around 200 while running with a 180 stat?

What temp are you guys running?

All you care about is the min and max when you 'get on it.' How you go about it is a moot point. Hopwever, the faster you get to the min is better so you don't have to wait long periods to be able to drop the hammer.

Everyone has different opnions on oil temp min and max's.
Mine is 180 min - max 240 maybe spike of 250 conventional.
180 min - 270 max synthetic. (We are not talking 5w-30 here). 270 is absolute max and I still would not want over 250F.

I prefer 15/50 /// 20W/50 .....Therefore not sure on lighter weight oils......which I pers do not want in my marine engines.

I hear you on keeping the oil in range.
I'm just wondering if it's a negative if your ceiling on the range is around 200 with a 180 oil stat as opposed to a 225 to 240 ceiling with a higher temp oil stat.

I don't anticipate a problem keeping the oil cool with a log cooler and in Lake Erie. I'm concerned about getting heat in the oil, thus the oil bypass stat.

I ran the permacool oil thermostats last season on my newly built motors. They fully open at 180*. At full romp the hottest I saw my oil was 200*. When I drained oil this past weekend I didn't see any moisture symptoms. in the oil. This season I'm switching to the Merc head mount oil filter with tstat, the square one. I believe these open at a higher temp so I'm curious to see how i run now. I use Mobil 1 15w50 from wally world

I mostly go on pretty long trips, therefore the 180-200 is fine for me. Plenty of time time to burn condensation out. I'd be fine with the 215-240 too though.

Now, many around me go on much shorter trips. Like, say, 1-3 miles...and sit for a lot, than come back. In that instance, especially considering our cold spring and fall water temps, I'd 1 million % go for the higher one.

In my small lonely world, lol, I see more engine's with oil contamination from short cold water trips than I do people baking their oil. In fact, I don't see anyone around here with a too hot of an oil temp oil breakdown issue...in boats.

I'm in the North on a medium sized lake. Just 21 miles long. Your mileage and use may vary.

Good point SB.
I suppose it's all in how you use the engine.

Thanks guys.

Well, I guess I haven't said much up until now---that "galvanized warsh tub" that I have been referring to the past 5 years or so....is really a 40' Hustler. It's the old 1995 race boat made out of Kevlar that won the "Worlds" in its class (or whatever you call it down in Key West back in the day). I wasn't sure if I was going to finish the boat or not so, that is why I have been kinda quiet about it here.

I wanted a piece of history so, I bought it back in 2010 or so. We completely stripped the boat from cockpit/dash to the stern/transom...everything---and now I can tell you that it is, for the most part at this time, starting to go back in the opposite direction. The boat is currently in an airport hanger here locally and has been a ton of work...a major restoration project to say the least.

Dave W has my blocks all cleaned and prepped for assembly and are on the stands now....cranks, rods/pistons have been installed. So, everything is flowing along in the assembly stage...boat, engines, and even had the Manning trailer completely restored/rebuilt last year at the Manning factory.

I remember seeing it up at Daves shop a few years back. I cant wait to see it done!

Very interesting read: http://hondakarma.com/data/attachmen...ing_System.pdf

One page (#55) shown I've included just below:
clearer if click this link: http://i59.tinypic.com/2cegpg.jpg
Remember:
80°C= 176°F
100°C=212°F
130°C = 266°F

http://i59.tinypic.com/2cegpg.jpg

If you go by that your engine will sludge and blow.