Oil temp management on track. How do I know its too high???

Hi everybody, I still wonder before sleeping why Porsche did not include an oil temp guage on the 996, given that I am preparing for a track weekend here, I am a bit puzzled as to how to accurately know that my oil temp is too high? Commonly, I have waited during street driving for the water coolant to reach opearting temperature and for the oil pressure to decrease at idle before I gave it the full beans. Now what I have found out is that; - Oil temp cannot be read via OBD, only "can-bus" / durametric diagnostics tool (which is not ideal as I cannot imagine looking at a laptop during heavy use. - there are ways to mod it in, but I do not have a sufficient enough skill set to do it on my own, nor now anybody that could. - I know there is a genius called Ahsai on the forum that managed to use IT wizardry to connect to a VDO gauge but I am too stupid to understand :-( - Due to the nature of the cooling water and oil temp is correlated My question is; - how do I know my oil temp is to high, is there a warning light on 996.1/2? - is there a kit that I could just instal? - water and oil temp is correlated, can I work with the assumption that if water temp is not too high I am fine? - what is the most pragmatic solution to know my temp is too high on the 996? E.g. I am pushing the car to its limit, what is the signal that the oil temp is too high I need to cool down? Thanks a bunch! Update 1. Decided on creating an oil temp gauge like Coopduc and Ahsai :-)

a simple and cheap VDO gauge plumbed into the port on the head is the cheapest and fastest way to go. Fairly accurate as well. I don't like anything above 240 degrees of oil temp, and thats on a hot summer day.

Vect, you ask some key questions. Take a look at Zbombs threads in particular "Oil Pressure Instability" . Jason put in an AIM system to measure oil and water temps, as well as a host of other variables. Within that thread, many industry experts including FSI, Hartech, CTS, LN and Porschetek3 discuss oil and water temps, as well many other topics as it relates to mitigating oil starvation and oil pressure instability. Connected to that thread is Porschetek3's thread on the UIDS of which many of us who are not technically astute, are looking for a reasonably priced system that we can use to measure the variables that Jason (Zbomb) has been measuring. Jason is checking with AIM to see if the AIM Solo 2 DL or something else will be sufficient. To your point on containing oil and water temps, there are many ways to do it. A 3 radiator system will help with water cooling. More oil supply with a 2 Qt deep sump will help with containing oil temps for approximately 20-25 min. However, the longer you stay on the track, the more risk you will have with oil temps escalating and swamping both the Oem water and oil cooling system. This means that if you have a 30 min DE session on a very hot summer day, you may want to consider exiting the session 5-10 min early to reduce the risk of your oil temps escalating beyond 240-245. Good news is you can add a 3 radiator CSF system to more effectively contain water temps. However, currently there is no easy to use bolt on oil coolers for our cars. The issue with the 996 is the lack of space within the engine compartment to fit more oil cooling, which is why after 20 years, there is nothing available. However, LN is working on this and hopefully will be able to announce a solution. In addition, many aftermarket providers and racing shops have developed systems that club racers use which are successful but very complex due to the length of tubes and pumps needed to run oil coolers in front to connect to the rear. CTS has developed a successful system for endurance racing that you will see in one of the above mentioned threads. Bottom line is this: 1. More powerful water cooling with 3 CSF radiators. 2. More oil supply with a 2qt Deep sump and exiting the track session early before oil temps escalate and swamp water cooling can help near-term 3. More oil cooling may be on the way with LN Prototype oil cooler. 4. More oil cooling is available with more complex oil cooling systems such as CTS. 5. Measurement of oil and water thru an AIM system or other products that we haven't mentioned. Hope this helps.

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Thanks allot, would you know of a guide on on how to do that? Have you done it by chance yourself? The thing is that I still cannot fathom the fact that the car has no warning on the oil temp being too high. I guess there is not even a warning light for high oil temp built in right?

What do you consider too high ?

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Excellent thank you very much for your detailed answer, oil pressure stability is of course a huge concern for me and thank you for addressing how to remedy that. I am really curious to hear what LN comes up with, maybe now with the increase in popularity of the 996 more things will come. I am currently thinking about starting with the third radiator, low temp thermostat, and x51 sump. Nevertheless, how would you know your oil temp, I see that you have an avatar from the track, is the oil temp really correlated to water temp? I am wondering simply when would I know that I need to back off from the throttle to cool down? Also from your experience what is the highest temps on water that I should accept in a) street setting and b) track. Thanks!

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Just subscribed to the youtube channel three days ago, what a coincidence! :-D Its not a question of too high, its rather; a) how can I tell my oil temp is too high in street or track application? I heard its correlated to water, via the head exchanges b) cheapest way to monitor oil (I see you have race gauges in the vids)

QC gave you path of least resistance for monitoring IMO. You could even tap the side of the sump for a 1/8 NPT fitting. You should really read the thread described above, there is a ton of data and pretty much all of it includes oil and water temps and is taken from varying ambient conditions. Thanks for subbing to the YT channel !

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Sure, buy: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/v...4aAgvkEALw_wcB Amazon Amazon Remove the port plug (mine is on drivers side on boxster, not sure which side yours is on), thread in sender. Attach spade plug to wire and hook up to sender. Run wire to space in dash for gauge, add power and ground for light, and thats it. obviously running the wire is a bit of a challenge, but really not bad.

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I would recommend that you read the UIDS thread. The UIDS will replace the need for an X51 sump. The reason is that it's engineered to address the oil starvation and oil pressure stability issue, whereas the deep sump with x51 is only designed to get more oil in the engine. I'll respond to your other questions later today.

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Thanks allot, I also found your post on the 986 forum. Took me some time to prepare my next post, so please bear with me, I am an idiot in these matters. I would like to make a guide for the 996 as there are many people who would love to have a temp readout. FYI I am in Europe and celsius is desired :-). Would appreciate your thoughts. So as for version 1.0 Parts list: 1. 300�F/150�C M14X1.5 Temp Sender https://www.vdo-gauges.com/300-f-150-c-m14x1-5.html DE: https://www.slspeed.de/de/product_in...tml&no_boost=1 2. VDO 150�C Oil Temperature Gauge https://www.vdo-instruments.com/inst...onnection.html DE: https://www.slspeed.de/de/VDO-Instru...-50-150-C.html 3.: anything else, what type of heat resistant cable will I need, what gauge? What connector type? Cool guy with a Land Rover who installed an Oil Temp Gauge You Tube Video on wiring loom crazy dude making an electric 996 You Tube Opinions / recommendations: The Radium King “go analogue and put a vdo sender on the engine (there is a spare, properly-sized port on the head diagonally opposite the pressure sender location - under the airbox on a boxster, presume opposite corner on a 996). the concern with the vdo sender soln is that it does not always see oil at the top of the head, however, steve on 986forum has logged his durametric temp data against the data from a vdo temp sender on his engine and says that they track quite well - a bit off when the engine is coming up to temp but otherwise good.” Temp Management according to GC996 "I paid a lot of attention to my water temp which always held steady at reasonable levels of 240 or slightly below by the end of a 30 min DE session. Many will tell you that you want to keep water temps below 240-245 (115-118celsius) and oil temps below 260-265 (126-129celsius) in a 30 min DE session. But since I had no tools in place to measure oil temps, I instead focused on water temps.", personal comment, focus on pressure as well under cornering and throttle. Concerns / critique: Javi Cooper “I read on Rennlist that to be accurate oil temp senders need to be bathed in constant oil flow (not dipped at the pan or randomly splashed). Can I get that flow here?” Questions, please help; will the reading from the port be accurate ? opinions. On pictures attached; Q1/Q2 - where do I get the source for this when installing the gauge in the cluster? Q3 what type of connector will I need, I guess I will need a few of those, cable (heat resistant), crimping tool, heat shrink (De Jeeper, no special cables required, focus on large rubber grommets behind the interior corner panels, "just follow the wiring harness) Q4 is that the location of the head port? where is the hole in the rear firewall to guide the cable? To all that respond many thanks! I will make a YT video about it :-), i think this will be very beneficial and help to all with the oil temp anxiety. Thanks!

I doubt u would need anything high temp for the wiring. There is nothing special about any if the wiring in the engine bay. There r large rubber gromets on both the right and left side deep behind the rear interior corner panels under the foam sound deadening. Just follow the wiring harness.

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Vect, sorry about the delay, it was a busy day. In answer to your questions. Over 14 years of tracking my car, I never once measured my oil temp. I paid a lot of attention to my water temp which always held steady at reasonable levels below 220 at most 2 mile long tracks by the end of a 30 min DE session. At Road America which is 4 miles, they would run higher but stay under 240 in the hottest summer days. All of this was with running 2 OEM radiators and OEM oil cooler, plus a 2QT deep sump. Many club racers will tell you that you want to keep water temps below 240-245 and oil temps below 260-265 during a club race, and many DE folks will tell you to keep water temps below 220 and oil temps below 240 during a 30 min DE. At this stage, I would ignore the club race temp numbers and focus more on the 30 min DE temp numbers. But since I had no tools in place to measure oil temps, I instead focused on water temps. Keep in the back of your mind that a PCA enduro club race is much longer than a 30 min DE, of which oil and water temps will go much higher than 220 water and 240 oil, with club race temps nearing or even exceeding 240 water and 260 oil. So, because there were not any bigger more powerful oil coolers available that would fit in the 996, we did the following to control temps for 30 minute DE sessions. 1. Use a 2QT deep sump to get more oil in the engine which provides a lag in oil temps rising for a short window of 15-20 min. After that, the extra oil works against you as oil temps rise quickly swamping the oem water and oil coolers. 2. As a precautionary measure, I would exit the 30 min session a couple of laps early before any temperatures got out of control, and then parked the car and ran it for about 10 min to cool down. In essence, with a 30 min DE session, I would typically enter late, and exit early with at the most a 25 min run. Both of these items helped to prolong engine life in my 996. If/when the prototype oil cooler that LN is developing is successful, there will be no need to exit a 30 min session early. Couple that with a 3 radiator CSF set-up, we may not have to worry about cooling again. Hope this helps. ADD/EDIT: Added additional points on cooling differentiation between 30 Min DE sessions in relation to Club Races as well as size of track, to add more contrast and clarity. Focus on 30 min DE numbers not Club Race numbers.

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Thanks a bunch! Updated the post with your information, as a complete noob I need to talk to a basic electrician. I found a cool YT video with a guy electrifying his 996.

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Wow amazing and thank you very much! This is some excellent news, now I will know what my temp targets are. In that case I am starting to understand Porsches idea on not having an oil temp gauge, but still I will try to retrofit. I have updated the thread with your info.

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Yeah, when you are on the track you are looking at one thing and that's the track. While I do plan on adding an oil gauge, I won't look at it until I come of the track, unless there is a yellow flag, to see where oil temps are. Just like I do with water temps. At that point, you will know if you are having a cooling problem.

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My gauges are on top of the dash so i can see them easily on track, but it certainy doesnt make for the best driving when you see the oil pressure gauge diving towards zero as you start turning in.

I find time to do a mirror and gauge scan on every straight. I guess it comes from years of instrument flying.

Quad, I hear you. I am not a gadget guy, but will be running more gadgets to measure and warn. Just not certain yet how to do it without creating distractions on the track. Vect, pay attention to Jason's oil stability thread. A more detailed discussion of cooling, oil starvation and stability and how they are intertwined will give you more to think about. Right now Jason is the only driver that has been consistently measuring oil and water temps, plus many other variables, and publishing his data. Chris from CTS has published his data as well from various races not DEs. Jason runs an elaborate AIM system as you know for recording data. He is working with AIM on our behalf to see if they have a system such as AIM Solo 2 DL that will be relatively affordable and able to record data for analysis. If so, we may have a number of gen 1 and gen 2 owners providing data to the thread to better understand cooling parameters, oil pressure etc. The numbers I gave you were the numbers that were tossed around in the community over the past 19 years which may be a good starting point. However, the last thing you want is to set your car up with a fog horn that goes off at 240 oil temp in the middle of a high speed carousel that will be enough to cause an accident. So use the numbers we are discussing as rough parameters, not concrete warnings. Further, where you track your car, weather conditions, how advanced you are as a driver, length of DE session, what you have bolted on your car for cooling, oil starvation, pressure, oil supply, etc., will all play into your range of parameters. As such, you will develop targets for your car that may vary from me in Illinois, Quad in his state, or Jason in MA. But at the end of the day, we will all be following the general principle of containing oil and water temps. ADD/EDIT: Reduced foghorn example from 260 to 240 to tie in to DE temps.

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Prf, what a great background to have. Without question, the biggest issue folks have early on is using the mirrors and the awareness of other cars around them. From a gauge scan standpoint, you gotta tip your hat to the genius of Porsche on the location of the tach, water temp and oil pressure gauges, and in general "scan easy design", allowing you a quick look from time to time while keeping your head up.

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I have been thinking the whole day about this. So would you say the following is true, (e.g. logic). Once at operating temperature the oil is normally at higher temp and is correlated to the water temp. Therefor , if my water temp is 240 degrees or below. My oil temp should be 99% fine? Thanks !

Well, maybe. 240 on the water is way higher than id like. Somewhat extensive testing on Spec caymans showed a roughly 40 degree swing between water temp and oil. Was about 210 water to 250 oil. Different car for sure, but given the water temp gauge is pretty useless, im not sure this would be sufficient as a means to have useful info

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Quad makes a very good point. Vect it looks like you may be new to this. Here is the bottom line. Cooler oil and water is better, and a necessity in engine durability. But not the only necessity. IMS bearing upgrade, aos upgrade, oil starvation and stability mitigation, using the right oil and frequent oil changes are also key ingredients in preventative medicine (not to mention many other items). For simplicity, there are no guarantees with any engine on and off the track, but if you want to reduce your worry of your engine over heating during a DE session of 30 min or less, you can take the following steps to potentially mitigate the risk. 1. Keep your water temps below 210/220 and oil temps below 230/240 on the track. Discussion of upper end water and oil targets above these numbers may be a distraction. 2. To help with cooling, add a 2qt oil sump extension for more oil, and a CSF 3 radiator system. Note: see point 3 below. 3. Keep your DE session track time under 20-25 min and then allow the car to cool down with the engine running for 10 min. 4. Consider adding a more powerful oil cooler once it becomes available. 5. Get yourself a tool to measure temperatures lap by lap to see your ranges and identify risk. Hope this helps.

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NO, be careful with your assumptions. As discussed in this thread, the data in Zbombs Oil Pressure Stability thread is "real" data during a series of 30 min or less DE sessions. CTS's data is "real" data during an endurance race which went 24 hours if remember correctly. It may also include back to back 8 HR enduro races. You can see how the oil temps and water temps interact and you can draw your own conclusions. But what you will see is that the longer you are on the track beyond 20-25 min, the more upward movement in oil temps. Depending on the length of time you are on the track and what you have bolted on your car for water and oil cooling will have a direct effect on the absolute levels of water and oil temps.

Vect, I added more clarity in post 13 to differentiate between DE and club racing temperatures, as well as track size. Hope that adds more clarity. Hope this helps.

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Vect, if I were you, IMHO I would not attempt to make a YuTube video on oil temperature anxiety until you have many, many seasons of DEing your care under your belt with practical experience in dealing with the cooling issues of your car. To gain this experience I would highly recommend to DE your car using the PCA regional events were you will have the porsche club racing community and many Porsche speed shops attending. You will develop friendships, knowledge, experience and perspective on how the different shops, club racers, DE guys are addressing the issues. Doesn't help you if you are at a DE surrounded by Miatas because te issues are different. To put it simply, due to the nature of any blog, the info you get is general and only a small piece of the entire story. You need lengthy conversations to get the entire story, of which it is tough thru a bog. Further, the risk of overheating, oil starvation and ultimately engine failure is real. More importantly, none of the solutions we have discussed on this thread or other threads are 100% foolproof. Lastly, the development of the UIDS and Oil Cooler can be major game changers in the equation on many fronts on how we all deal with these issues. IMHO, your best bet is to read as many threads on RL as possible on the topics you have an interest in, and ask lots of questions. Most importantly, get experience with your car on the track to live thru the issues. The 996 is awesome. Enjoy it. 😁

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https://rennlist.com/forums/parts-ma...te-filter.html I have found this external oil cooler, could this be an improvement?

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As of right now, there isn't a realistic oil cooling solution for the 996 that will fit in the engine compartment. The reason is that a bigger and more powerful oil cooler won't fit in the space provided for the Oem oil cooler. If it did, we would already have an easy solution. To your point on an external cooler, sure an external cooler could theoretically work but the experts tell me that it's not that easy. Because there is no space in the 996 engine compartment, you have to find a place to put it. Location means the need for more hose length, loss of cooling with more hose length, more pumps, etc. As you can see, there isn't an easy fix, which is why we don't have an easy external solution today. However, as I mentioned in a previous thread, LN Engineering is working on an oil cooling solution for the 996. They are looking at it from every angle and application. My bet is they will find it.

Hi all just to keep this thread alive, I have decided to go the route of Coopduc and Ahsai by creating a oil temp gauge connected to DME, as I have two 996's (.1/.2), i will then share on the differences in DME pinout.

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Hi there, so as a general rule of thumb if I maintain 245 water, am I fine ? also I have seen on LN's site two OIL AOS bypas kits, are these the ones you were mentioning ? Thanks! https://lnengineering.com/products/b...anger-kit.html https://lnengineering.com/products/b...-m97-only.html

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Vect, LN Engineering is working on an oil cooling kit for the 996. It's been tricky because there is not sufficient room for an additional oil cooler in the engine compartment, so they are working through location, size and cooling capacity. I am very confident they will have one, but it's tough to pinpoint a date. So what I have done in the meantime is the following. 1. I am still running only 2 radiators with a low temp thermostat. While I have all of the 3rd radiator attachments less radiator, I am not putting on a third radiator until LN rolls out their oil cooling kit. Don't yet know where the oil cooler will fit, so no sense in spending $500 on a 3rd radiator until we have more info. 2. I am putting on the UAOS w/track drainback this week to replace my porsche motorsports aos which just failed. The UAOS will allow us to run an extra quart of oil which will help in oil starvation and oil cooling over a 20-25 minute session. Add in the extra 2 quarts of oil from a deep sump, and I should be ok with cooling for the 20-25 min. After that, temps begin to rise quickly. 3. Once the oil cooler is ready, and the UIDS is ready with the next round of manufacturing, I will be adding both and the oil and cooling system will be complete. In the meantime you maximize and mitigate where you can. Can't wait! Regarding temps, take a look at a few of the previous posts. In 14 years of DEing my car, the water temp light only came on once at the end of a DE session, at Road America, and I got offline, got off the throttle and exited the track. The light went off before I got off the track. At the time I was running 2 extra quarts of oil and 2 OEM radiators. It was an extremely hot summer day. Don't know if the water temp light flashes at 240, 245 or another number, but you really want to do everything you can with what cooling to prevent it from flashing. Someone will see this and know the number. So any additional cooling thru more oil capacity, low temp thermostat, extra radiator, oil cooling kit, getting off the track early at 20-25 min, is good. Which is easy enough to do with DE. ​​​Track Awareness Is Important: if you are in the situation where your water temp gauge flashes there is no need to panic, get offline and then off the throttle. But the key is to move your car offline before you get off the throttle or you will have a bigger problem with another car parked in your back seat. As you become more experienced and get faster, you will graduate to faster run-groups. The faster the run-group, the more you will see faster cars pushing the slower cars in front of them to pass. Hence the importance of track awareness and moving offline and out of the way before you get off throttle.

One mod which is pretty cheap and cheerful is to add a switch to the high speed radiator fan relays, fans still operate with the normal automatic control but you can activate high speed whenever you want. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I think low speed is engaged whenever the AC is on or coolant > ~97C, and high speed when coolant > ~102C, so turning on high speed when you're closer to 80C should help keep the coolant and oil temps lower for longer.