Pinned

I've had my E63 for a bit and notice that the oil seems to run a little hotter than I'd like, or have seen in many of my other cars. It sits around 103-105* C in average driving, up to 110* C in heavy traffic, and easily hitting 120* with a few minutes of aggressive driving. With such a big and expensive motor it seems best to keep it a bit cooler - even my previous turbo cars ran a touch cooler and we still kept to shorter oil change intervals than Mercedes recommends for these cars due to oil breakdown.

I know the C63 guys have more severe cooling issues - what's the reason for that? They also seem to add on the Black Series cooling, but $2,500 for those parts seems pretty darn expensive.

Are there any aftermarket solutions or attempts other than what FMU offered? Is anyone else concerned about their oil temps on these cars or am I worrying needlessly?

shardul

iTrader: (1)

Higher oil temps will cause the oil the break down at a faster rate.
It would be wise to perform oil changes more frequently.

mightar

I can't recall ever seeing my oil temp hitting 120+ C. Maybe it depends on what "aggressive driving" is.

That said, what oil are you using? For me it has always been Motul 8100 xcess 5W-40 under my ownership and I'm very happy with it.

hachiroku

^ Agreed. I too run Motul 8100 5w-30, but with Liquimoly Mo2S additive.

with aggressive driving i've briefly hit higher temps, but once the fans kicked on, they quickly dropped. I haven't tracked my car so I cannot speak to that. for aggressive street driving I've noticed that if you drive harder in stop and go traffic, but not full throttle the fans don't seem to come on. In full throttle, I've noticed that the fans do come on and temps quickly drop at around 1C every 20-60 seconds in 85F ambient temps. In 90F+ ambient temps temperature drop can be longer 60-180 seconds per 1C. Same with freeway flogging...maybe there is a built in thermostat? if I'm hooning on the freeway but don't go full throttle...temps stay a bit high, but when i give it full throttle the temps begin to drop then stabilize.

the W211 E63 tries to keep temps at 100-105C. actual is anywhere between 100-105 in winter daily driving to 109-115C in summer driving.

100C is pretty optimal for oil temps for power production.

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/13-p...e-most-hp.html

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ub...il_Temperature

http://www.elephantracing.com/techto...emperature.htm
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/engine-oil-temperature/

Pinned

Of course, but I'm trying to determine if these temps seem higher than what Mercedes intended. The C63 has a major oil cooling problem, is the E63 using any sort of different parts? If not it seems it would have similar issues where the overall temp is higher than optimal. I usually change more frequently than manufacturer recommended either way, but I was surprised to see these temps.

What temps do you see daily driving? I can get the car to hit 120C reasonably quickly in the canyons (higher RPM/load, lower air volume running over the cooler).

Running Mobil 1 5w40.


It seems like your temps are similar to mine then. In previous cars adding additional oil volume or cooling has been par for the course - but this car runs hotter than I'd like stock. I think getting the temps 10* lower in most conditions would be ideal.

So it looks like there is nothing on the market in terms of an oil cooler other than the black series kit. Has anyone run that on their E63 and found it worth the investment?

hachiroku

the C63 has a sub par heat exchanger because they didn't anticipate their owners would track their cars. the E63 does not have this issue.

As far as increased cooling most of the frontal area within the E63 is already in use for all of the coolers on these cars...you might need to redesign the entire cooling system or custom build a thicker denser oil cooler to replace the factory cooler. what you will run into with bigger oil coolers is that you may have a pressure drop across the cooler. to appropriately design a replacement cooler, you'll need to bench test the pressure drop of the factory one, then attempt to achieve the same pressure drop or if possibly less.

the purchase of a core, shouldn't be more than a few hundred, but the issue would be finding someone to appropriately TIG weld the end tanks and fittings for you. this job just for the cooler build out minus disassembly, install, and fitment will alone by around 500-1500 for the cooler itself.

another thing you can try attempting is adding additional fans onto the front side. an old racing trick in building race cars is to add fans to the front and back of radiators and coolers to aid in low airflow situations. along with low air flow situations the push and pull effect allows for a stronger steady flow of airflow through the cooler. downside is decreased natural airflow, but if your cooler is generously sized that shouldn't be to much of an issue. if it is just kick on one set of the fans.

Skizz

I've posted a few times here and on PL about my temps seeming high. I saw 123c in my hilly neighborhood after driving around it at 25mph. As soon as I got on the road and got airflow, temps went down. Turned on AC, temps went down because fan kicked in. Yeah, I get that, but still seems kind of counterintuitive.


Have a friend that's an AMG tech at a local dealer, who also happens to have a blown M156. He did a lot of checking into this for me, even checking with the factory guys. From all I have gathered, it's normal and okay. Believe me when I say I was worried about it cause I seemed to be running higher than almost anyone I discussed it with on the forum. The consensus is that its fine and if something wasn't, it would throw a code. Temp, humidity, altitude have an impact and individual cars all behave a little differently. So, I did what someone suggested: didn't worry unless I saw code and just enjoy.


That being said, I change oil about every 3k. Yeah, I know. Overkill, but I do it anyway as it's not my daily. AND my tech buddy fiddled with STAR and reset fan parameters and now car usually resides at 95-105c and doesn't go over that much.

hachiroku

ya...I've hit 123-125 twice before...it happened when I was driving fast but not full throttle in traffic. fans didn't kick on til I full throttle redlined, and slowly dropped to 119. Once I got onto the freeway my temps further begun to drop to 115 then 112-113. this was in summer with AC on and ambient temperature in the 90's.

Using good oils like Motul and you shouldn't need to change your oil so often. I'm really **** about changing oil but the first 2-3 I changed Motul at 3k, 5k, and 8k the oil was still a nice color and had great fluidity. Since then I now use Motul 8100 5w-40 strictly with LiquiMoly MoS2 and plan to push my next oil change interval to 10-12k. I drive hard, and have slowly progressed to longer oil change intervals upon careful inspection.

Skizz

Yeah, like I said: overkill. I know I don't have to do it so often, I do it mostly out of obsession and just to do it. I've had my oil analyzed (Blackstone said when I waited after first buying it to change it at 5k, oil was clean with only very minor particulates that were substantially below thresholds). Silly me, I still use 0w-40 Mobil 1. Yes, I have seen all the oil debate threads, but I do what I do. That being said, I have considered switching to Motul just for grins, but would still change at 3k. What can I say; I'm a relic.

hachiroku

no worries...I bet the inside of your engine is as clean as new