First Track Day-Overheated!

[JeremyD]

Glad to see you back Stephan...

[Doug Steinel]

I think ambient temperature makes a big difference. My 3.0L with the trombone gets up to 230 degrees when the ambient temperature is over 90 degrees and I am cruising at 80 MPH in 5th. And after this, if you get caught in traffic, the oil temp really climbs. But if the ambient temp is 75 degrees, the oil stays around an acceptable 210 degrees.

[avendlerdp]

Interesting thread. I have an SC powered early car with a Carerra cooler and still saw 230-240 deg during my last track day at Willow Springs. It was about 95 out and running hard with the advanced group I had to cut sessions short due to the heat. I tried taking out the turn signal for air flow but had no good results. I even added a cardboard scoop. No dice. By the way my case has no sump plate. Is this a later SC motor?

[Bill Verburg]

Is this a later SC motor?

Yes, the sump plate was eliminated half way thru '83

[Brian 162]

One guy at a drivers ed had a stock 79 SC. He had a bra on the front of the car and the temp. went through the roof. He removed the bra and the car ran fine the rest of the weekend.

Would a sticking thermostat cause the problem?

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

I had the thermostat stick last summer on my SC and the temp went to almost 250--numerical gauge--on an ordinary warm-day drive to pick my daughter up at a railroad station 30 miles away. Fixed that pronto--it's in fact easy, there's a kit that Pelican carries.

And of course you can tell if the thermostat is sticking simply by feeling the bronze tubes in the right front fenderwell. Don't do it in the rear fenderwell, since they'll pick up some residual heat from the thermostat even if it is sticking, but if the gauge is above 180 and the pipes aren't hot, the thermostat innards are tits-up.

Stephan

[patkeefe]

I just spent a boatload rebuilding my 160k mile overheated street/track engine. Yeah, I have a remote cooler. The car ran so hot at the last track event that it started gushing oil everywhere.

My experience is this...I had the engine apart for rebuiling, and tested the internal oil thermostat. IT DID NOT OPEN! I replaced it with a new one for $100. Please examine the possibility that this is part of your problem before you start throwing money at something which may not fix your problem. Don't assume that an aftermarket or Carrera cooler will fix it. If your engine mounted cooler doesn't reject any heat, no aftermarket cooler will fix it.

Edit:
my fenderwell aux thermostat worked fine, BTW. Just can't reject that much heat in the RF fender.