Finally Adding an oil pressure gauge. Should I get one that also gives me oil temp?

c good

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Dec 8, 2011
637
Is it good to have the oil temp along with the pressure? If so, what would be an alarming oil temperature?
 

mrrsm

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Oct 22, 2015
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Unless you are Turbo-Charging or Super-Charging any Gasoline Burning Engine under Racing Conditions and your Normal Oil Cooler is Clean Flowing and NOT Clogged or leaking Oil when under use for Towing Applications ...You are --very unlikely-- to exceed the Nominal Cold to Hot Oil Temperatures of Mobil1 5W-30 FULL Synthetic Motor Oil in a Normally Operating Automotive or Truck-SUV Engine:



PS...

If you Change from using a Normal Cast Iron Exhaust Manifold over to UN-WRAPPED - NON-CERAMIC Coated Stainless Steel Headers... Enough Radiant Heat can --rain that energy directly into the Engine Block-- Enough to Raise the Oil Temperature via "Thermal Runaway" conditions. It is very important to understand that that Radiant Heat will --NOT-- be affected by the Passage of Air around the Engine Block!
 
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TJBaker57

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FWIW, my 2002 has the factory engine oil temperature sensor and I see oil temps approaching 200°F in my bone stock 4.2.

When the temp goes above about 195° is when I see oil pressure dropping very low at idle. I'm talking like 6 or 8 psi.
 
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Mooseman

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Dec 4, 2011
26,034
Ottawa, ON
My Sierra with the 3L turbo diesel regularly goes to 250f and occasionally 260f if it's towing. And that's on 0W20 oil! Since I have a variable pressure oil pump, it adjusts to that and keeps my pressure at normal levels.

On normal gassers, the oil temps pretty much follows the coolant temp unless it's low or something.
 

c good

Original poster
Member
Dec 8, 2011
637
FWIW, my 2002 has the factory engine oil temperature sensor and I see oil temps approaching 200°F in my bone stock 4.2.

When the temp goes above about 195° is when I see oil pressure dropping very low at idle. I'm talking like 6 or 8 psi.
Hi TJBaker57.....I realize this is an older post but I just stumbled onto it again. So your 2002 has the factory oil temperature sensor.....did it come with a gauge also? Mine does not have a temp gauge. How do you access this info?
 

TJBaker57

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Aug 16, 2015
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Hi TJBaker57.....I realize this is an older post but I just stumbled onto it again. So your 2002 has the factory oil temperature sensor.....did it come with a gauge also? Mine does not have a temp gauge. How do you access this info?


Not only does it not come with a gauge, but my Tech 2 doesn't display it either !!

My 2002 4.2 came with both an engine oil temperature sensor AND an engine oil level sensor.

These sensors can be accessed with Apps like Torque Pro, car Scanner ELM OBD2, OBD Fusion and so on. They all would need to be setup with the custom PID definitions though.
 

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