 |
|
Ultimately, I’d like to have OP, OT, OP lite, and WT. VDO Visions. Plan is to use the block from LeatherZ with the OP/OT senders attached. The site says the OP sensor allows for keeping the stock lite. Can I run an aftermarket lite off this block instead (guy at LeatherZ wasn’t very helpful on this issue).
I’ve searched and seen several options for getting water temps. Most seem to involve clamping an adapter in the top hose. Which is best for the not so handy?
Thanks,
Kyle,
In an effort to keep from rolling around on frozen concrete I researched your OP question instead. The VDO sensor has a pressure transducer for OP and a NO contact set to ground the contact when the pressure falls below the sensor limit (8 PSI for the sender I looked at.) So it will run an aftermarket ididit light. FWIW $105 seems a little steep for a 2" cube of aluminum w. 3 holes drilled in it, 2 tapped. But it’s your nickle. As to the WT, why wouldn’t you just use the stock block location?
Dude, these issues are beat to death. Go thru old posts in the relevant section(s).
Cliff notes.
OP sensor and switch. The way to do this is to remote off of the OEM OP switch location. Put a hose up to your fender, put in a little manifold sort of thing, then put the sensor and switch into the manifold. Putting the sensor on the block is a mistake because pressure sensors are sensitive to vibration and besides, you don’t want a bunch of things hanging off of your block’s OP port. Some track debris will whack them right off.
OT is a little tougher. You have to get it in the flow of oil and the OP location isn’t going to do it. IMO you have only 2 choices. Plumb the sensor into your Oil Cooler line, or put it into your oil pan. There’s a couple ways to do the oil pan solution, the best of which is to weld a bung on the driver’s side of the pan for the OT sensor.
Get WT from the tstat housing. If you dont’ have a tstat housing with a bung already installed, either drill/tap a hole or get a tstat housing that is threaded. I think that I have several that have been beadblasted pretty. $20 shipped and one could be on it’s way.
Don’t forget about a WP switch. That’s really important because it’s likely be the only warning you get re. coolant loss. There’s a couple good places to put that.
Cheap vs. high end gauges. If you’ve no desire to connect these gauges to a data logger than drive on. Next year when you decide that you do want to log this data, you’ll be buying high end stepper motor gauges with analog outs. As a matter of fact I just ended up with a Stack OT/WT gauge that I don’t need.
Get an adustable OP switch and decide later the alert threshold. I’d go for 20-25psi. That way if OP drops because of oil starvation in a corner, you’ll know. egauges.com is a good source for all of this.
Note that VDO has two ranges, “VDO” and “US” and they aren’t compatible with each sensors. Dang, it looks like I should return to the sales spiel. It just occured to me that I also have a number of VDO OT, OP and WT gauges and sensors. For a while there I had a helova lot of gauges in my car.
There’s old threads that go into this stuff in glorious detail.
Read all the threads, but thanks for the summary. My question was very specific about the light. You answered my question re: WT.
And I’m not doing any data logging, ever. Been there, done that. Keepin it simple now.
[quote=“cosm3os” post=61755]Read all the threads, but thanks for the summary. My question was very specific about the light. You answered my question re: WT.
[/quote]
Ok, but as I understand your OT plan, it’s not going to work.
A couple yrs ago I went thru an obsessive phase re. sensors and gauges. I tried a helova lot of ideas, some worked, some didn’t. Pretty much any way you can put an oil or water sensor on, I’ve done. At one point I had 2 OT sensors, 3 OP sensors, 2 OP switches, 2 WT sensors and one WP switch. Tell me what you want to do and I’ll tell you how to do it at least cost and such that it will work.
Kyle answered it here:
In an effort to keep from rolling around on frozen concrete I researched your OP question instead. The VDO sensor has a pressure transducer for OP and a NO contact set to ground the contact when the pressure falls below the sensor limit (8 PSI for the sender I looked at.) So it will run an aftermarket ididit light. FWIW $105 seems a little steep for a 2" cube of aluminum w. 3 holes drilled in it, 2 tapped. But it’s your nickle. As to the WT, why wouldn’t you just use the stock block location?
8psi.
Thanks. Doing my best to learn a new platform (and 20 years of other’s expertise on that platform) in the couple of months that I have to get ready to race!
Ranger, why driver’s side for the OT bung? I know you’ve done a lot of testing on the matter and I’m curious if you have a specific reason.
Wouldn’t the passenger side, as close as possible to the pump pick up, be a more crucial location to know the temp? My thought is the oil pooled behind the baffle on the driver’s side might be a bit cooler. Although maybe this is just splitting hairs and the temp throughout the sump is consistent.
I started using the driver’s side because that’s where Chuck Baader put the bung. But what I later found is that the oil level in the pan varies a lot and it’s easy for the temp sensor to become uncovered. That creates the appearence of temp spikes because it exposes the sensor to the hot gaseous environment inside the block. The driver’s side of the pan ensures no conflict with oil pump nor pressure relief valve, and also might have a little a more stable oil level because of the baffle. With some cleverness, the passenger side could probably be made to work well enough tho.
There won’t be a difference in oil temp one side to the next. There’s too much flow of oil all around the place for any appreciable hot/cold spots to develop.
Ranger, why driver’s side for the OT bung? I know you’ve done a lot of testing on the matter and I’m curious if you have a specific reason.
Wouldn’t the passenger side, as close as possible to the pump pick up, be a more crucial location to know the temp? My thought is the oil pooled behind the baffle on the driver’s side might be a bit cooler. Although maybe this is just splitting hairs and the temp throughout the sump is consistent.[/quote]
One comment about LeatherZ. I bought the adapter from them, it didn’t fit my car so I wanted to send it back. I was out of town so my wife called them. They were (and I’m going to say this nicely) very rude to her. I threw the adapter in the lake.
Ranger, are you talking about this port on the bottom of the housing?
Or are you talking about tapping this boss on top?
I want to get this installed while we’ve got the coolant out (timing belt and water pump replacement).
The top pic looks like the port to the throttle body is circled. The bottom pic shows what I was describing as a good place for a temp sensor. Some tstat bodies already have one or both of these locations tapped with a plug in it.
By “both” I mean the other round flat spot just behind the one you circled.
Another solution is to pull the dash gauge sensor out of the tstat housing and use that port.
[quote=“Ranger” post=62943]The top pic looks like the port to the throttle body is circled. The bottom pic shows what I was describing as a good place for a temp sensor. Some tstat bodies already have one or both of these locations tapped with a plug in it.
By “both” I mean the other round flat spot just behind the one you circled.
Another solution is to pull the dash gauge sensor out of the tstat housing and use that port.[/quote]
How trustworthy is that stock sensor? Does it just not work when it fails, or does it read the temperature incorrectly?
[quote=“Foglght” post=62944][quote=“Ranger” post=62943]The top pic looks like the port to the throttle body is circled. The bottom pic shows what I was describing as a good place for a temp sensor. Some tstat bodies already have one or both of these locations tapped with a plug in it.
By “both” I mean the other round flat spot just behind the one you circled.
Another solution is to pull the dash gauge sensor out of the tstat housing and use that port.[/quote]
How trustworthy is that stock sensor? Does it just not work when it fails, or does it read the temperature incorrectly?[/quote]
I personally have no experience with either of the stock temp sensors failing. Since there are no moving parts I would expect failure to be rare…and they’re easy enough to test using the procedure in Bentley.
Note that the temp sensor that connects to the DME is important because it’s one of the few inputs at WOT. Levie and I saw that the DME seemed to dial back power once the engine got a bit hot. So if a temp sensor failed such that it read 10deg too high, which you’d never detect by testing it…not in a million years, your temp sensor would cost you several hp.
My only problem with the stock sensor and gauge is that it doesn’t provide much info. I want to know exactly what the coolant temp is, as opposed to guessing what the gauge is trying to tell me, and I want coolant temp to get logged by the Traqmate.
The tem sensor can fail in several ways, most of which result in nonsensical readings. But they are generally rather reliable.
Well, housing removal fail tonight. If you have a later car with the two sensors next to the head, the housing can’t come out unless you remove the fuel rail (it hits). Having never taken the electrical connects off of the injectors on a E30 before I thought I had better stop before I broke something. Any tips for removing the electrical connectors on the injectors?
I just removed the whole intake manifold to get the housing off. Can’t remember what interfered but I guess I was taking the intake manifold off the last couple times anyway. I changed the t-stat on the ix which should be the same thing 3 day’s ago and I don’t remember those untapped spots being there. Have an 8th floor apartment with no parking now. Can’t run out to the garage and look at anything anymore.