Thanks!! Very cool!!

Would be fun to meet up with you down at VIR at some point. Probably could have some serious fun. Have a couple others that I am sure would like to join us as well!

I am definitely looking forward to seeing C8Z's out on the track. Good luck at your upcoming event at VIR!! Can't wait to hear how the car works for you!!

 

My C8 which is primarily a track car blew 2 engines on the track, and I had the car back in 2-3 weeks both times. GM stands by their warranty.

 

You redlining the car when oil temp was only 154 may have contributed to this. A lot happens very quickly at those high rpms. I dont think 50w oil is really 50w oil at 154 degrees. The bearings will move thousands of times very quickly in your 1-2-3 pull and if the clearances were even microscopically imperfect, then this happens.

 

Do you have or driven a C8 Z06? If so, let me know how hot you have gotten the oil temp to on the street.

 

I havent no and I have seen videos/posts here showing some sort of concern around this. All I am pointing out is basic physics. Oil is oil. It actually isnt 50w but rather 5w at ambient temp and as temps go up chemicals in it react to cause the viscosity to go up. Your video says you used to own GT350R, so you should know Ford would keep the redline at 8,000 rpm unless oil was at least 189F. Ford had a similar 5w50 oil to this Z06 oil. I would never ever exceed 4000 rpm on any car unless the oil temp is at least 190F. For repeated back to back redline shifts, that number is 200-210F. I am not blaming you here I am simply highlighting a potential issue with Z's oil pump design. We dont need PhDs in mechanical engineering to figure out oil at 140-150F isn't going to work as well as oil at 190-200F. Otherwise, they would design these oils to have 50W viscosity at 150F not 212F. I'm sure driving around town these low temps are fine (although with many many more miles you may have accelerated wear) but during a redline, a lot goes on in these high revving high compression engines - particularly flat plane crank ones.

You are saying you used to own a GT3. Not sure if you recall but GT3s are known for taking extremely short amounts of time to get the oil up to temp. When I drove my friend's 991.2 GT3, the oil temp was climbing pretty much in sync with the water temp and in 5 miles we were at 190/190. This was quite interesting for me because I always had issues with GT350 oil temps not exceeding 160 in winter. I think Porsche has some smart trickery to warm up the oil quicker because maybe they know the cold oil is no good with these high compression motors? Just saying

Again not blaming you at all. You have done nothing wrong here.

 

An owner reached out and discovered the oil temperature is measured from the tank vs the traditional return line. That is why the temperature is lower.

 

But doesnt that still mean the oil inside the tank that gets pumped out to the crankcase colder? Do we know actually Chevy has something like A) not pumping the oil to the cooler until all oil is warm and B) in the very early stages of start up cycle even the oil in sump isn't pumped to the crank case other than the initial amount just to get the engine going. I see what you are saying but I am still not sure if it addresses the issue here.

 

Always amazes how the haters rally around a story like this but slobber over Porsche or Ferrari for repair work when they experience failures.
I have owned a total of 9 Corvettes over decades and never had single problem with any of them.

 

.. and that is why they test. The production LT6 has a bolt-on oil filter housing.

 

I just took a 20 minute drive to the gym. Warmed the car up for 10 + minutes and the oil temps were at 135 degrees at 48 degrees ambient temps before leaving the garage. The car never went over 147 degrees. Mostly hovering at 145. I don't think I've seen temps higher than 176 degrees. No way anyone is getting oil temps to 190 degrees by idling the car.

Since the motor failed, I'm being even more diligent than I was before. I plan to run the car in tour mode ONLY for the first 500 and not exceeding 4k ever. My dealer will do an oil change as my Corvette tech suggested (I would do this myself but want documentation).

Not being defensive here; but if I am the reason the motor failed the first go round - It's gonna get ugly when I actually drive it like it's meant to on track!

 

Still want one.

 

Displayed oil temps on the Z06 will always show as lower than on most cars:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1606142350

And a multi-vis oil doesn't suddenly jump from 5 weight to 50 weight at a certain temperature. And that doesn't mean what you think it means anyway. What it means is that when the temp is very cold the oil flows like a 5 weight, and at high temps it flows like a 50 weight, and at temps in between it flows like a oil with a viscosity in between. It doesn't flow like a 5 weight when warmed. The idea is that it flows consistently over a wide range of temperatures.

 

Thank you. Some unknowns here, as one of the previous posters stated the oil temperature is the temperature of the oil in the sump not necessarily the oil temperature in the engine. That being said, without knowing exactly how and when the oil flows where, we cant know for sure if the oil temperature that bearings experience is same, less, or more than the oil temperature you see on the dash.

As a side note, while location of the sensor may explain a lower reading, I'd like to highlight this is not a very good design because at the end of the day owners should know the temperature of the oil that's going to the pistons and the crank. Without knowing this, how can anybody rely on the temperature reading?

One of the good ways of telling if the oil is warming up "good" and doing its cycle of completely evaporating the water mist in it is doing blackstone oil analysis. One must do this after regular city driving of 2000-3000 miles, doing track driving can completely skew results. But basically if blackstone oil analysis indicates oil viscosity was lower than expected, that may mean water vapors inside the crankcase never evaporate because they never reach 212F. Same goes for fuel. Some fuel always escapes piston rings. If oil gets up to the operating temp, this fuel will not last inside the oil whereas if fuel stays there and more fuel gets in there, when the car isnt driven and parked the fuel will lower the viscosity of the oil as it will act like a thinner.

Without knowing how the oil pump works in the Z06, best thing we can do is this oil analysis. My gut feeling tells me Chevy isnt stupid and wouldnt run 145F oil in a high compression 8600 rpm FPC V8 long periods of time. The location of the sensor probably exaggerates the situation BUT I still think the oil maybe too cold or colder than ideal for too long. They probably went a bit overboard with excessive cooling due to C7 Z06 overheating issues and what we are seeing is an unfortunate side effect. My GT350 had a similar issue like this and my oil would never get over 160F November-March. As a result, oil changes done in those periods of time always had excess fuel in oil as well as visocsity readings lower than normal (30W vs 50W). I knew this after first season and always took it easy in winter months. Something to keep in mind.

 

The Z06 has a cartidge filter like I have on my vehicle. It is held in by a plastic threaded retainer that will not shake off.
This is the retainer on the Z06:

 

Nothing like putting 1500 miles a year on an engine to really stress it. 🙄 For sale used C6Z06 lady driven.

 

Sorry to see this. I hope it is an isolated case traced to some bad batch of supplier's part (as we saw with the valve springs).

 

He has a Z06 with only 25,000 miles on it that runs great and you fell the need to goof on him. Truly stirring.

 

It's actually 1,667 miles/year and was driven by an OLD lady...and only to church on Sunday's!

 

Sorry to hear, NXTFAZE. At least you're back on the road quickly!

I think it's too early to place any blame on the oil temp; auto manufacturers routinely design for at least a 2:1 viscosity variation; we don't know the exact range of bearing BOC (operating condition) that the bearings are designed for, and at this stage we don't even know if these few issues are design, manufacturing, parts issue, tolerance stackup, assembly, or some combination of the above at a bad statistical stackup, or even the failure location inside the engine.

I will agree that oil analysis will be very interesting on the LT6; the presence of the high vacuum changes the evaporative temperature range for the pcv system, and the 150-160-degree oil may be within spec for water removal.

 

Another show of class.