Oil Temperature

[John Vine]

#24:  Works a treat.  In fact, that's how I found it (but via a separate search).

JV

[Gridgway]

#25 are you sure it's quite that?  I don't know the plumbing specifically, but if it is on the outlet of the sump to the scavenge pump, it's there to protect the scavenge pump (and to some degree the pressure pump) from debris.  The oil flows through the main oil filter to protect the engine.

[7 wonders of the world]

on the inlet side of the scavenge pump,

The oils falls into the sump pan and is guided via a trough it then passes through the inside cylindrical finger filter and continues into a gallery cast in the pan, and onward to the scavenge pump.

By removing the retaining plate the finger filter can be removed and checked for debris and cleaned, it needs to be carefully located on refitting preferably with the soldered joint facing the rear of the engine, then carefully locate in the retaining plate as you refit.

We had some new plates made up tapped for an oil sender in order to record peak oil temps, I will ask again if we can have some more made up.

 

 

[Temple Cloud]

Just picked up my Crossflow from Eric at Millwoods after having a Racetech combo oil pressure and temperature gauge fitted amongst a few other mods. And I'm really glad I decided to do this as it takes a lot longer for the oil to get to a good operating temperature (I use 80C), especially in this cold weather. Perhaps Caterham can think about adding one as standard in the future 

[ScottR400D]

"Perhaps Caterham can think about adding one as standard in the future" 

I wouldn't hold your breath..........

[ScottR400D]

"We had some new plates made up tapped for an oil sender in order to record peak oil temps, I will ask again if we can have some more made up."

Neil, one thing about those, are they made from scratch because I wonder if the standard ones would be thick enough to cut a thread into? There would only be a couple or so threads. 

[Geoff Brown]

#27 - does what it says on the tin - scavenges. #28 supports that.

[Colin Heseltine]

I was out in my 420R up in the Peaks this morning.  Cars and fields  white over with frost in many places and puddles at side of road frozen, and slush across the road in odd places.  My oil cooler is blanked off completely and I never saw the needle go out of the blue section of the temp gauge.  I have a switch to switch between water and oil temp both showing on standard water temp gauge.  I ran separate cables rather than mess with the cable loom.  The cables in the loom are quite thin with very little spare length. The oil temp sender is in the tapped outlet at the bottom of the DS tank.  The water temp is happily at the usual 95 degrees.

I have the carbon dash and did not want to drill it.  I made a small aluminium bracket with a 90  degree bend in it.  The bracket is tyrapped to the large connector plug in middle of the dash.  This way the switch is out of sight, is reasonably firmly held and I can just reach it when belted into the tillets.

I do wonder at this time of year whether to put an insulating coat around the DS tank.  The only time I have removed the cooler blanking plate is when I did a track day.

Colin

[KnifeySpoony]

The 420R has racecar cooling. ie it has enough oil cooling to keep oil from overheating while driven flat-out in a draft, with poor airflow to the coolers. In any other situation (yes even on hot trackdays), it is overcooled in my experience. It's awesome that Caterham have built such a race-ready machine with dry sump and cooler, but it's not really ideal for a dual purpose car. A water/oil cooler would have been better for 99% of buyers. In an ideal world, they could supply either cooling setup as an option. Although to be honest, I would have still chosen the current setup, as my car is primarily driven on track, and even here in Northern California, 90-100F (~32-38C) trackdays are common. I still drive my car to/from the track which makes me cringe at the temps sometimes. I have found that cruising on the freeway at 70mph, with ambient temps around 4C (which sounds like you were in today), even with my cooler blocked, my digital oil temp shows 41C in the tank!

[StevehS3]

I suspect the majority of R spec 420s are used on the road too. It is a big seller. Am I over simplifying by saying it needs a oil temperature control system or even simply a thermostat to switch the oil cooler out of circuit when not required (assuming it doesn't have one).

[AlastairA]

#33 - really helpful Colin - thank you. I think that's the direction I'll take. Clearly very helpful / important to be able to see oil temperature and it does make you wonder why Caterham haven't included it as a standard.

[Colin Heseltine]

Steve, I was talking to Stuart Cresswell about the intercooler/heat exchanger a couple of days ago.

[7 wonders of the world]

Oil thermostat

Something like this

https://www.mattlewisracing.co.uk/product.php/1834/0/mocal_remote_oil_cooler_thermostat

This permits the oil and water to run at their individual respective temps..

92 degree version is available

[KnifeySpoony]

From my research an inline Tstat will only bump oil temps up marginally. I guess any improvement is improvement, but it wasn't worth the hassle for me. 

[Simon420R]

Having read this thread with interest, as a new 420R owner myself, is there a general consensus on which engine oil grade is best for these engines? In my previous cars I've always preferred Millers CFS 5w40 NT+ and was thinking of using it in the Seven, once out of hibernation. 
 

If the oil struggles to get up to temperature are there better/safer alternatives?

[ScottR400D]

#34 "It's awesome that Caterham have built such a race-ready machine with dry sump and cooler"

I'm not sure about that. There was no apparent logic to what CC did when changing the radiators from the design they'd used for years to this 'Race' spec. 

I very much doubt the changes were necessary even for racing, unless the change to the unnecessarily high temperature water thermostat made it so. If they were, the least they could have done is made a top hose that fitted and, as said, put in a control system to at least maintain a minimum temperature on road.

Not to mention that the rads appear to fall apart with monotonous regularity, though the previous versions were by no means bulletproof, to say the least! 

Awesome? I would think 'expedient' is more likely.  

[KnifeySpoony]

I think there may have been some logic. One thing to consider is that the oil coolers on the 420R racecars  (run in the now titled 7 UK championship) look similar but actually are larger then those in the road-going counterparts. So apparently they decided that those cars needed even more cooling. They also modified to nosecone to allow for additional airflow. This suggests to me that cc has made some attempt to make these cars able to cope with the maximum heat demands that could likely be placed on them. Of course, that means they become less suitable as dual purpose machines. But real racecars don't have oil thermostats afaik. They are properly warmed up, then run hard. Which seems how the 420r is intended to be used. 

[7 wonders of the world]

They are properly warmed up, then run hard. Which seems how the 420r is intended to be used. 

 

..and how do you propose you do this on a road.....?

Just another example of giving a 'race marketing tag' to a road car in order to justiy poor engineering.....

[SLR No.77]

There have been plenty of issues in the past with the effectiveness of cooling in the race cars, mostly due to running close and the draft through the nose being lost, More effective cooling is needed than would be the case for a road car which doesn't sit at full chat with it's nose shoved up the back end of the car in front.

[ScottR400D]

"More effective cooling is needed than would be the case for a road car which doesn't sit at full chat with it's nose shoved up the back end of the car in front."

So why impose that system on road users? (With the associated issues due to it being poorly engineered in the first place)

 

[Gridgway]

#45 - I think that might be a tad harsh that it's poorly engineered in the first place.  There's quite a lot of complexity to add with thermostatic oil cooling systems for a car that has to function in cold road conditions and super hot track conditions.  And with that complexity comes weight, cost and potential for unreliability.

Mind you we were having the same debate about the k-R500 when that came out, especially when Caterham went belt and braces with the oil cooler plus mini apollo tank to try and address the big ends going bang problem

[ScottR400D]

"There's quite a lot of complexity to add with thermostatic oil cooling systems "

I'm not even thinking about that. I've got in mind things like leaky radiators, radiators that don't fit under the nose properly, a top hose (designed for the old system) that doesn't fit properly.

There are cars costing £40k upwards out there with cable ties holding hoses to stop them rubbing, cars where the owners have had to go to third parties to buy new suitable radiators, cases of having to grind away brackets etc and move radiators to get the nose to fit......... what's that if not poor engineering? 

The road car doesn't necessarily need a thermostatic oil cooling system (if the cooler's needed at all, they seem to run quite happily with them blanked off) but I'm not convinced it's that complex in any case. 

 

[Gridgway]

sorry, I thought you were referring to the oil system being poorly engineered rather than having a general rant about quality 

[KnifeySpoony]

My point is that the 420r, with regards to its cooling, really is a "race car for the road", and not just a marketing fantasy like 99% of other cars labeled as such. Many people think they want that but actually don't. Get a rosd car for the road. For a 2.0 duratec 7, that means a wet sump car with modine cooler. Which cc also offers. 

[ScottR400D]

Try as I might I can't see where CC market the 420R as a Race car for the road....

The R doesn't even come with the track suspension or big brakes, the race cage etc. it's just the same as a 360R. 

This is what they do say:

"Some cars just aren’t afraid of any road that comes into view. The Seven 420 is one of those cars.

A 210bhp wielding gladiator ready to take on any highway one-on-one, the Seven 420 delivers huge dollops of torque, backed up by a high-revving, dry-sumped engine that makes it a wild, but intensely visceral ride."

Where does that indicate that it's a race car for the road?