Oil pressure + temp. What should it be?


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PaulJ

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Well, my oil temp + pressure gauge turned up today, but just realised I dont even know what It should read, thought it may be useful to know this before I fit it!

I want to know what the temerature and pressure should read when:

a) Idling
b) Its fine to hit vtec
c) When I need to get worried its too high (track use only id imagine)

Thanks :nice:
 
Around 90 degrees should be warm for VTEC. Drive around for 20 minutes, look at the temperature. That should be your operating temperature at which you can hit the gas. Pressure depends on how far you push the pedal; the higher the load the higher the pressure. Don't really know what those numbers should be though.
 
90? Seems a bit high...was out in my mates k20 dc2 last night and his barely went above 80, would it have made much difference being a k series?

yeh think il just see what mine runs at after a good drive.
 
my oil temp for just cruising about town etc once warmed up is around 80 - 85

as for the pressure im not to sure what it is . i just know if the gauge drops off drastically turn it off lol
 
Oil, wouldn't be Vtecing it until you see it up to about 75/80 deg, with normal road driving it's not unusual to see the oil up in the 90's, on track the highest i've got at Knockhill is 108deg and at the ring the highest was 118.6 :nerv:

Pressure is a funny one, once the engine is fully warmed, at idle it will fluctuate between about 17/21 and once you are going i'm not sure as it bounces about alot and more interested in watching the road! Although i've recorded a max of 95 iirc

All of those values are taken from mine which also runs a heat wrapped manifold, huge koyo dc2 rad and other cooling measures :)

K20's should run a bit cooler as the engines themselves hold 1.5L more oil, greater amount of oil means better heat dissipation, hence why companies like Moroso make sumps with kicked out capacities
 
i would say 80 degrees c and up for vtec seeing as oil cooler thermostats are set to around 80-85 degrees. oil pressure should be minimum of 1.5-2bar but they should have a pressure relief valve to stop the pressure getting to high think it's between 7and 8 bar. i've seen mine up at 120degrees on knockhill and that was in february. oil coolers are a good idea for people doing track days just make sure you get one with a thermostat or it will over cool the engine on normal roads and damage the engine
standard type-r engine's have oil to water heat exchangers fitted as standard which can start to bring up the water temp under hard driving but tend to keep the oil a fair bit lower in temp than say a b16a
remember the hotter the oil the lower the pressure as oil becomes more viscous with heat
 
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max oil temp shdnt exceed 140deg on track. oil pressure at idle is ard 1.5-2 bar & full throttle shd be ard 5.
 
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mine sits at 90 (ish) when i'm just mooching about but when the pedal hits the floor it bops up to 120 at times... I am running a B18 though ;)
 
dan22h said:
i've seen mine up at 120degrees on knockhill and that was in february. oil coolers are a good idea for people doing track days just make sure you get one with a thermostat or it will over cool the engine on normal roads and damage the engine


standard type-r engine's have oil to water heat exchangers fitted as standard which can start to bring up the water temp under hard driving but tend to keep the oil a fair bit lower in temp than say a b16a
remember the hotter the oil the lower the pressure as oil becomes more viscous with heat
Click to expand...

Like you say with the oil to water exchanger, fitting a bigger radiator has a similar effect to fitting an oil cooler

Same track day as you at Knockhill i just couldnt get the oil above 108 deg and that was about 8 laps at a time

Checked yesterday and at idle the car bounces about between 14.5 - 19 psi, that's with the idle at 750rpm on a spoon ECU
 
Got my gauge in now,first real drive in it today. My pressure seems quite high, idle when hot is around 30 psi, peaked at about 99. High pressure is nothing to worry about though right? It was pretty smooth,wasnt suddenly dropping or spiking. Temp seemed pretty good,after about half an hour of nice driving to work it only got up to about 75c, peaked at about 85 on the way home with a bit of tec.
 
mine gose 100-115 temp drivin around with out hiting vtec. pressure gose up down when push gas.
 
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