Hi,
This is my first mini, so apologies in advance for any daft questions!
I have a 1989 mini Thirty 998cc running 20w50 and a vmaxcart supercharger. Mileage is ~125K miles... my guess is that it has had engine maintenance work done to get there as it doesn't smoke or rattle, and is a vey well maintained car. It has a slight blow in the exhaust (on my list to fix), some slight milky residue on the oil cap (the oil is new, but looks fine and not like milky coffee). It appears to have a couple of mods to the sensors as follows:
- An oil temperature sensor that is located on a spacer between the block and the oil filter mount housing.
- An oil pressure sensor where the oil pressure switch is normally located.
The switches connect back to some extra gauges in the cabin. The oil temperature is a circular gauge embedded into the dash, and has markers at 50C-120C-170C (min-med-max), whilst the pressure sensor is mounted on top of the dash next to a boost gauge.
At cold idle the oil pressure reads 60psi (ambient air is 16C). After a short 15-20 min drive, the pressure drops to a steady 40psi, but temperature reads all the way up to 170C (into the red section of the gauge). At this point I pull it over, open the bonnet and wait 5 mins for it to cool. Resuming driving, the temperature is still reading 170C. Coolant temps look fine.
A little research suggests the pressure readings are about right, but the temp readings seem high to me. I'm not driving it for more that 20mins for fear of inflicting bearing damage.
Should I be worried by the temperature readings, or should I just monitor the oil pressure? I am open to fitting an oil cooler (the setrab ones look pretty good), but only if there is actually an issue.