I still think your gauge / sender combo is the first thing you should investigate. These commonly go out of callibration. Drive to a shop & get them to measure actual oil temp.

Had the car for a year and a half (Nov '03), started mid last summer. But that was the first summer I owned it so......

Will check everything, including engine oil cooler. Stupid confession #378: Didn't know the thing had an on engine cooler.

Also, funny that Paul mentioned the WUR. I do have an idle hunt problem and occassional full-on bog on when starting from a standstill first thing in morning. Problem is gone within minutes of first firing engine. sammyg2 is setting me up with a WUR. This problem did not exist winter of '03-'04 only just this past winter.

Lots of ideas to keep me busy this weekend.

Bump to catch opinions of the weekenders

i gotta agree with the baseliner opinions already listed..confirm the accuracy of the temperature gauge..have a shop set proper timing and mixture to eliminate those factors. if trombone is hot, then aux thermostat which leads to the aux cooler (trombone) is functioning..i believe this is supposed to happen at about 170-180 degrees. next time it's hot, check the temperature (hot to touch?) of the ENGINE oil cooler (not the trombone) and see if it's hot as it should be.

i agree that your cruise temps at those ambient and driving conditions should put you near the top of the normal operating range, which is generally 180-220 for these air-cooled motors without aux oil coolers, thus your normal range should be maybe 10-20 degrees lower. good luck and let us know what happens.
ryan

last year I had high temp problems - my engine mounted oil cooler was gunked up by some past oil leak. so I pulled the alternator/fan out, used carb cleaner, followed by simple green, and a garden hose pushed all the way back. all kinds of black pieces and cottonwood tree fluff balls came flowing out. now my temps are back down to normal.

I know that it is difficult and very subjective to determine if you are too lean or too rich so looking at your gas mileage might be a good indication of where your mixture is.

Cheers,

Joe

again, if you aren't much of a diy'er, have a shop set proper timing, idle and mixture (they have the gas analyzer you need, unless you're familiar with estimating by duty cycle). this won't cost a fortune and will nicely baseline your car. new plugs, cap and rotor..points if you use them..are a good idea too.
ryan

Update:

-Timing, idle, and mixture set. It was a little lean.
-Cat was beginning to clog, so it's gone.
-The shop worked on the on engine cooler - apparently it was a mess. But a PITA to R&R and clean without dropping the motor so lots of degreaser sprayed in. It's a little better, so that thermo may be OK, but too much oil and goop on that cooler seems to be the culprit. The cam seals were just replaced due to oil leaks - would that impact the on engine cooler?
- Will check all fuel pressures next time in for AC fix and see if I need a WUR too.

Any secrets to R&R the on engine cooler without dropping the motor?

Thanks everyone for all the input.

Put a Piragua in the engine compartment to it cool down.

I always thought excessively retarded timing causes excessive heat. i had the timing retarded when installing a new distributor on a chevy smallblock and saw the headers glowing red.

After a run, all the headers glows red. Drive your Porsche at night and see the headers glowing.

If the car is running to lean, what MPG numbers would he be getting?

-I think 20ish around town and mid to high 20's (running 70-75mph) on the highway is normal??

I have been getting around 23mpg highway with a 70-80 mph average.

Hypothetically, I crossed 100 coupla times last night without adverse temp impact. Dare I say it ran cooler at 100 than it has been at 80? But its just a hypothesis. I never exceed the posted limits.

I'd love to see that mileage on my SC. I get high teens around town and about 20mpg on the freeway. I've seen as low as 16mpg. That was when the car was new to me and I couldn't keep my foot on the accelerator nor the smile off my face. :-)

Interesting,

I don't have any temp issues, and I just tuned the car, which has never run particularlly lean. I've got 140k miles or so on mine, and I get about 20 around town, and 25-27 on the highway-if I'm staying at a steady 70ish..., fast running over say 85, and I get about 20 even..

-Adam

Changed to synthetic a couple of weeks ago.
Before 23.2mpg
After 25.7mpg.

do you guys only drive downhill? If I'm lucky I get 15mpg. On long freeway shots I might get up to 18 or 19....maybe. Typical is about 14mpg.

Maybe its my driving style :p

btw, the trombone cooler was fine at keeping my car relativley cool even in 100degree temps in SoCal...at least on the street. It was *not* sufficient for track use in those ambient temps.

I agree on the cooler bit, if it's clean and set up correctly it works pretty well-at least on the street..

-I'm told that sc's prior to 81 get a bit lower mpg than the later year cars, I've only had an 83 so I don't have personal experience but my concern has always been not to run too lean because of the related problems with that...I remember a guy a few years back in the 914 club that was bragging that he was getting mid to high 30's on the highway, problem was he was running lean as hell and killed his motor..