Oil temperature gauge

[murrayb]

I am looking to fit an oil temp gauge to my Chim 500 - ideally one which matches the other gauges (white) complete with TVR legend. Anyone know of a supplier. Also best place to put the sender unit?

[GreenV8S]

Think a sender in the sump plug is the favorite trick. There was a mention on PH of some company that would match the TVR dials complete with logo but can't remember the name - maybe a search would turn it up?

[murrayb]

Many thanks for that lead. I had searched the forum with no result but Google found it under another thread. A search lesson there perhaps?

Apparently Caerbont Automotive Instruments in Swansea will add the TVR logo to a TVR temp gauge. And as you suggest, sender unit in the sump plug.

[markh]

I guess you could just use another 'TVR' water gauge ans hook it up to an oil temp sender. You could put it where the clock is (most cd/radio seem to have a clock anyway)

[Tahiti450]

Oil temp gauge would be a really useful addition, but, before going down the water temp gauge route, bear in mind that oil temps are much higher than coolant temps. Running temp of oil maybe over 120 C ! If you use a water temp gauge and sender, once warmed up it would just sit hard up against the stop, and would be no use in warning for xs temps. You would need a different sender and then the dial face would need to be reprinted with an appropriate scale... Unfortiunately not as straight forward as it should be. As it happens Caerbont instruments are just up the road from me in Swansea, if thats of any help.

[ian8542]

I fitted a Mocal combined oil pressure and temp guage to my '98 Chim 520. All i needed to do was change the bezel over from the TVR guage and you couldn't tell the difference.
Kind people at TVR Eng welded a boss in the sump for me to fit the capillary temp sender.

[murrayb]

Thanks for the warning on temperatures however I have heard from one Chim owner who has done this that the oil temp sits at 80 - 90 degrees. He has used a standard water temp gauge with an oil logo put on by Caerbont and sender unit thru the sump plug.

[Tahiti450]

:scratchin: 90C oil temp... Suggests to me that its not getting much stick. The object of having the oil temp gauge really is to monitor what's going on when running at high load for prolonged periods (say track days / racing). Under those conditions oil temps will reach surprising levels and need to be kept an eye on. If the engine isn,t being subjected to that kind of use then it rather begs the question - why do i need an oil temp gauge? The chances are that sure, most of the time cruising on M ways even at 100mph all day your'e only using perhaps 20% throttle, or mixed driving with short bursts of full throttle, the oil will never get heat saturated and temps will remain modest. It really down to a function of - BHP produced x time - which will determine oil temp. The upshot of that is that the one time when you really need to get good info on oil temp (when its really being caned, which isn't really possible on public roads)the needle will shoot up, hit the stop, and make you very nervous... I tried exactly that set up years ago on a historic rally / race car, and that was exactly the result(and it did have a decent oil cooler) !

[murrayb]

Thanks for that - a good point. I had a Skyline GTR that is fitted with an oil temp gauge as standard though its not properly graded - I seem to remember it just had a max reading of 150C. Certainly going around the Nurburgring it read significantly hotter than normal road driving!

[ian8542]

[quote=Tahiti450]:scratchin: 90C oil temp... Suggests to me that its not getting much stick. The object of having the oil temp gauge really is to monitor what's going on when running at high load for prolonged periods (say track days / racing).


A more usefull advantage of having an oil temp guage is to be able to see when it IS ok to cane your motor.
i.e when there is sufficient heat in the oil, not just the coolant which can often mislead people into thrashing their engines before it is fully warmed up.
Speed 6 engine springs to mind.

[tahiti450]

[quote=murrayb]Thanks for that - a good point. I had a Skyline GTR that is fitted with an oil temp gauge
Yeah, turbo engine oil gets really hot!!