Warm up times

[viperbl]

Guys,

Can anyone tell me the minimum time to warm up a Noble M12 GTO 3R safely?

Let’s assume its a mild day in march, I would expect maybe 15 mins or more of careful driving, keeping the RPM under 2000?

Can the factory comment on this??

[m12_nathan]

I used to wait for the oil temp to hit 60 degrees.

[DanH]

Under 2000rpm? That sounds a little OTT to me! I think its 3000 or so for me.

Personally I watch my oil temp gauge. Can't remember what I let it get to though. 70-80deg I think. It doesn't take 15 mins.

>> Edited by DanH on Tuesday 5th April 14:28

[lucozade]

I've also wondered about this.

Having owned TVR Tuscan's I appreciate all too well the need to pamper the engine for the first few miles. Even though they still go bang anyway !

I tend not to go above 4000 rpm for the first 10 or so mins but I guess that's my own personal rule of thumb.

[micknall]

Warm-up times are a lot easier to gauge if you have a car fitted with an oil-temp gauge (all M400s are), after all it's this, and not the water temp, that really matters.

Ambient temp plays a big role in warming up. During our severe cold spell recently, an M400 could take as long as 20 minutes before it found its way past 65 degrees oil-temp. It takes half that now it's warmer.

I'd say max 3-3500rpm until the oil's up to temp, but there are no hard and fast rules.

Simon Hucknall
Press Officer
Noble Automotive Ltd.

[MisterX]

viperbl said:

Guys, Can anyone tell me the minimum time to warm up a Noble M12 GTO 3R safely? Let’s assume its a mild day in march, I would expect maybe 15 mins or more of careful driving, keeping the RPM under 2000?

Interesting question. One which I have never considered. I would have thought that there is no need to allow time to warm up, unless ambient temperature very low or unless you are going on track. Surely the car can be "safely" driven at legal speeds without having to take special measures. Obviously one wouldn't test the 0-60 speed straight out of the garage, but surely the car can cope with "normal" motoring behaviour?

[lucozade]

With only a 1 year factory warranty its worth taking car of your pride and joy and making sure you are warming it up before I would have thought.

Any engine surely benefits from this in reliability terms.

[viperbl]

micknall said:

Warm-up times are a lot easier to gauge if you have a car fitted with an oil-temp gauge (all M400s are), after all it's this, and not the water temp, that really matters. Ambient temp plays a big role in warming up. During our severe cold spell recently, an M400 could take as long as 20 minutes before it found its way past 65 degrees oil-temp. It takes half that now it's warmer. I'd say max 3-3500rpm until the oil's up to temp, but there are no hard and fast rules. Simon Hucknall Press Officer Noble Automotive Ltd.

Thanks for your comment Simon.

Unfortunately this only goes to confirm my suspicions that my dealer hasn't been treating my car with a lot of respect.

Recently while my car was with a well known Noble/TVR/Lotus dealer in the Northwich/Cheshire area for yet more snag fixes, I noticed that they had driven the car up to 97mph on local roads just 3 mins after the ignition was turned on. (Love GPS trackers!!).



>> Edited by viperbl on Thursday 7th April 09:19

[lucozade]

That's not right !
Hang on - my car is serviced at "that garage" too and I have a tracker fitted.

Wonder if its worth checking with my tracker company too.

I certainly would not be happy if I found out my car was being "ragged" during its road test.

Right, Tracker company called, report on its way. Fingers crossed all will be ok.

"company name removed"

>> Edited by Big Al. on Wednesday 6th April 21:14

[LaurenceFrost]

viperbl said:

Let’s assume its a mild day in march, I would expect maybe 15 mins or more of careful driving, keeping the RPM under 2000?

You must remember that oil is still capable of both flowing and lubricating even when cold.

I personally have always stuck to 3,500 max until the water temp is running at normal level. At this point the oil will have warmed too.

After this I will allow more revs.

[micknall]

You must remember that oil is still capable of both flowing and lubricating even when cold.

I personally have always stuck to 3,500 max until the water temp is running at normal level. At this point the oil will have warmed too.

After this I will allow more revs.


I don't want to get too 'nal about this, because warming-up an engine is a process that requires common sence, rather than incremental precision. The reason I mentioned oil temp was because - in extremis - you can damage an engine over a prolonged period by continually thrashing it from cold when the oil is thick, and its pressure is high.

Also, water temperature is certainly no indicator of oil temp, and the two will rise at very different rates.

Simon

[DanH]

Water temp isn't a desperately useful indicator though, as it warms up much quicker than oil. Still maybe by the time the water is at 90 the oil is at something reasonable.

Seems I do roughly what Simon suggests anyway

[LaurenceFrost]

DanH said:

Water temp isn't a desperately useful indicator though, as it warms up much quicker than oil. Still maybe by the time the water is at 90 the oil is at something reasonable.

Sorry this is what I was trying to say.

The oil will always warm slower than coolent, buy by the time the water is up to temp the oil will have gained some heat too. That's not to say it will be at full running temp though.

[Mr Noble]

viperbl said:

Recently while my car was with "my local garage" for yet more snag fixes, I noticed that they had driven the car up to 97mph on local roads just 3 mins after the ignition was turned on. (Love GPS trackers!!).

How do GPS trackers give you this type of reading? I have Tracker Monitor. Can I get that type of info? Don't think mine is GPS.

Thanks
GN

>> Edited by Big Al. on Wednesday 6th April 21:17

[paulcundy]

LaurenceFrost said:

DanH said: Water temp isn't a desperately useful indicator though, The oil will always warm slower than coolent, buy by the time the water is up to temp the oil will have gained some heat too.

Oh dear, did no one do physics?

Where does the water get its heat from? From the engine internals? If the water is hot then the engine internals are hot. The relative masses of the fixed engine internals (i.e. the metal bits) compared with the minute but rapidly flowing volume of oil is such that the oil cirulating around the already hot internals is rapidly warmed to operating temperature. So the oil in the sump can be cold but by the time its gone up the oil pickup, through the pump, along the galleyway, across the feed into the crankshaft, along the feedhole and out through the conrod bearings its picked up just a tad of the heat thats in the already hot internals. Remember the oil sump on a M12 is vast, of course the oil dropping bcak into it can be at working temp long before the greater part of it that circulates around the oil temp pickup is at working temp.

Finaly, one of the secondary tasks of engine oil is too carry heat away from the engine. Its not as good at that as it is at lubricating and absorbing pressure which is why engines are designed to pump oil for that purpose and water for another.

The long and the short of this is that once the water is up to temp the engine can be loaded.

Finaly finaly what happens to your oil pressure as the oil temp goes up? - it falls. The colder the oil the better - in all circumstances.

If thats the case then why bother to "warm up" the engine?

Well its back to physics again. The engine is made up of all sorts of bits and pieces. Some designed to take explosive forces on the chin, other to contain explosions, others to transmit expolsive forces to other parts, some to slide, others to rotate, some to mesh, some to impact. In order to do these various tasks the different bits are made of different materials, some are cast alloys others are steels. The various bits and peices, being made up of different metals, have different coefficients of expansion. Now heat is going to be produced so the designers have to design the engines assuming it will operate at a given "normal temperature". The cooling system is designed to keep it at this optimum temperature. The designer then makes the parts so that - at that temperature - allowing for expansion due to the heat - all the parts mesh and meet at the correct tolerances.

The reason you warm up engines before you load them is to get the internal bits and peices up to their operating temps so that they are working at their design tolerances.

Ergo - water temp is the one that counts. Not oil.

Regards
PauL C

[lucozade]

Mr Noble said:

How do GPS trackers give you this type of reading? I have Tracker Monitor. Can I get that type of info? Don't think mine is GPS. Thanks GN

Phone your tracker company and ask. I read about a BMW M3 owner who's car was in for a 1000 mile service and the dealer had ragged it on the road test. The dealership had to buy him a new car because they had effectively invalidated his warranty because the M3 still requires to be run in between 1000 and 4000 miles. Oops.

I'm still awaiting my report from Navtrak. Apparently it stores minute by minute speed readings by date/time ! Although I'm not sure if this only happens once the car is moving. Fingers crossed I will have nothing to worry about.

Which reminds me - when I went to the dealer to collect the car me and my colleague witnessed one of the service guys driving into the car park having used my car to go get his sandwiches from Tesco !


>> Edited by lucozade on Wednesday 6th April 12:59

[DanH]

paulcundy said:

Finaly finaly what happens to your oil pressure as the oil temp goes up? - it falls. The colder the oil the better - in all circumstances.

Not sure I'm entirely convinced. The colder the oil, the more viscous it is. This can't be desireable, otherwise presumably we'd all be using much more viscous oil in the first place!

[quote]
Ergo - water temp is the one that counts. Not oil.
[/quote]

This directly contradicts what the factory just said above!

[mc101]

Common sense prevails -- from my M3 days, 10 mins <3K rpm thereafter a bit more stick :-)

[paulcundy]

DanH said:

Not sure I'm entirely convinced. The colder the oil, the more viscous it is. This can't be desireable, otherwise presumably we'd all be using much more viscous oil in the first place!

Obviously there is an "optimum" viscosity. Too thick and it won't work, which is why artic drivers have sump heaters or build fires under their sumps each morning.

Yes in the "first place" you are using more viscous oil, witness oil pressure at tickover when cold = 40 psi but when warm = 14 psi.

The point I am making is that once the water is warmed up the engine can be used even though the oil temp may not be up. Its the water temp that counts. Remember the oil temp gauge is measuring the temp of the oil in the sump, not the temp of the oil thats actually lubricating the bearing surfaces. That oil will quickly reach the temp of whatever bit of metal its against.

Regards
Paul C

[viperbl]

Mr Noble said:

viperbl said: Recently while my car was with for yet more snag fixes, I noticed that they had driven the car up to 97mph on local roads just 3 mins after the ignition was turned on. (Love GPS trackers!!). How do GPS trackers give you this type of reading? I have Tracker Monitor. Can I get that type of info? Don't think mine is GPS. Thanks GN

The GPS tracker I use is mainly used for commercial vehicles. It can track loads of different parameters including speed, distance etc. It also texts me when the car is started up or move’s out of a certain area because it can track when the igition is turned on or off.

What has upset me is that I can see my car has not been treated well … bang out of order if you ask me , and no one has been able to explain to me why.

I have noticed it has been taken out again today, this time they managed to limit the speed to 72 MPH, but only 4 mins to warm up

Maybe someone was hungry?