986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - View Single Post

JFP in PA · 08-31-2009, 04:55 AM

Sorry, but while your "experiment" was at a minimum "entertaining", it did not give you a single accurate reading of the circulating coolant temps, which are much higher. From the factory, the M96 coolant typically runs between 210-215F when the dash gauge indicates 180 (the dash gauge is both inaccurate and non linear in its function), measured by the actual sensor in the coolant, which is pretty accurate when temperature tested out of the car. Changing the OEM thermostat to the LN 160 degree unit lowers the engine coolant and oil temps significantly; the coolant to 175-80, the oil by as much as 20-25 degrees. Oh, and rather than use a non contact infrared pyrometer to "attempt" to determine coolant temps, we also actually added aftermarket instrumentation (calibrated gauge units) to confirm the numbers, which they did. Getting the oil temps is a bit more complicated, requiring adding a remove oil filter mount to accommodate the test instrumentation.

If you really want to know the temperature of your coolant, connect a OBD II scanner with PID capability to your OBD II port and set the unit to coolant temperatures; then take your car for a ride. Under cruise conditions with a ambient temperature in the 70-73F range, let us know what you find…………………
…you just might be surprised as well................

08-31-2009, 04:55 AM	#18
JFP in PA Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: It's a kind of magic..... Posts: 6,273	Sorry, but while your "experiment" was at a minimum "entertaining", it did not give you a single accurate reading of the circulating coolant temps, which are much higher. From the factory, the M96 coolant typically runs between 210-215F when the dash gauge indicates 180 (the dash gauge is both inaccurate and non linear in its function), measured by the actual sensor in the coolant, which is pretty accurate when temperature tested out of the car. Changing the OEM thermostat to the LN 160 degree unit lowers the engine coolant and oil temps significantly; the coolant to 175-80, the oil by as much as 20-25 degrees. Oh, and rather than use a non contact infrared pyrometer to "attempt" to determine coolant temps, we also actually added aftermarket instrumentation (calibrated gauge units) to confirm the numbers, which they did. Getting the oil temps is a bit more complicated, requiring adding a remove oil filter mount to accommodate the test instrumentation. If you really want to know the temperature of your coolant, connect a OBD II scanner with PID capability to your OBD II port and set the unit to coolant temperatures; then take your car for a ride. Under cruise conditions with a ambient temperature in the 70-73F range, let us know what you find………………… …you just might be surprised as well................ Last edited by JFP in PA; 08-31-2009 at 06:14 AM.