Of course, hot is a variable temperature.  I guess that's why people put in oil temperature gauges.  If pushed, at high ambient temperatures, no supplemental oil cooler, probably most of these beasts would fall below 8 psi at idle.  But with a supplemental oil cooler, keeping the oil temperature closer to a reasonable value, the pressure stays above that value.

I may throw in synthetic 20W-50, though for right now, I don't seem to have a problem, given the external cooler and conventional 20W-50.  But I did, before the cooler.  mcneely

---- Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Try Red Line 20w-50 synthetic oil.  It gives me a 1-2 psi boost at all rpm
> over 15w 50 because it is physically thicker.  I'd love to see 30 @ 4000,
> I'm closer to 25 when hot.
>
> It's the idle pressure that really tells you what's going on with the
> bearings.  Below 8 when hot means it's time to plan for a rebuild or
> conversion.
>
> Stuart
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Robert Clemmer
> Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 1:17 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Oil Temperature??
>
> I have a 91 2.1 WBX that just turned 300K miles on this past trip to FL.
> The oil pressure is fine until the oil temperatures start to go on the north
> side of 220 then it starts dropping proportionately with oil temperature.
> Oil temperature starts climbing proportionately with outside air temperature
> when the temperatures are above 85.  When it is 95 or higher outside my oil
> temps can go 240-250 and pressure will drop to 30 psi at 4000 rpm.
>
>
>
> Those of you have that have installed external oil coolers, how effective
> have they been?  What kind of temperature drop can I reasonably expect if I
> decide to install an external cooler when I pull this engine to "freshen it
> up"?
>
>
>
> Thanks for your comments, BobC

--
David McNeely