RazorRacer and Botman goto track
 

We entered our first drivers education last weekend. It was well organized and great fun. If you haven't done one of these, I strongly recommend trying it. The next Texas World Speedway event is in November.

My only comment about my 78SC is that the oil temperature would just start to hit red after about 20 minutes of DE. It never gets close to the red on the street.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads/DE1.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads/DE2.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads/DE3.jpg

Oh yeah, Botman advanced to blue on his first DE. I hate him. :mad:

Looks like you guys had a great time!

I think red on an SC oil temp guage is about 300'F. If 250F is "too damn hot", then 300F is "Way too Friggin hot!"

Metal wear increases dramatically at those temperatures.

As you are finding, the heat generated in street driving is not even close to what happens on the track. The stock oil cooling on the SC just isn't up to the demands of track driving.

From the looks of the clouds in the sky this wasn't even a particularly hot day.

You need to upgrade the oil cooling and get the oil that is in there out. If you got near the red on the oil temp it is way to hot, and the oil is probably broken down.

Razor, Glad you got your car ready for the track. Looks like two happy dudes in that picture. If your car got over 250F...mine is not going anywhere near a track until I get a front cooler (no external cooling at all right now).

Holly cr@p!

The car acted like it had 50 to 75% power when the oil temp gauge approached the red. It never reached the red except for one time and that time the needle was even where the black touches the red. I'd run the car each session and when I felt a loss of power I'd take the car right in to the pit area. So here are a few questions:

Note: there were a total of seven track sessions. This problem did not occur on the first nor second session. After each session the car cooled and started up fine for the next session.

The oil was changed 2 weeks before the DE and looks almost brand new now. Did the oil degrade? Is there a way to check for oil degradation?

What physically caused the 50 to 75% power loss when the engine temp was hot? Also the oil pressure dropped to 2.5 to 3 when the engine temp was hot.

What is the best oil cooler upgrade for doing DE track events?

Bruce Anderson said that the earlier SC ('78's?) could wind up with too much oil in the sump and the solution was to get the updated venturi pickup. The power losses result from the crank thrashing through the oil in the sump - remember this is a dry sump motor.
That said, another friend is going through this problems with his '78 and the venturi update didn't fix his problems.
-Chris

I change my oil after each DE. Call me anal, but I think once the oil gets really hot, it starts to break down(I'm using Kendall GT-1, 20-50w).

As far as oil cooling goes this is what I would use these oil lines:http://www.elephantracing.com/oilhandling/oilines.htm

and this cooler:
http://www.elephantracing.com/oilhandling/elephantoilcooler.htm

Available at Pelican.

I would also recommend installing the numerical oil temp gauge. I though my SC was running way hotter than it really was. I don't know if the gauge was way out of wack or what. But once I changed to the numerical gauge, and took a reading with an I.R. gauge, I could see that my car was running way cooler than I originally thought.