Seriously... I think someone should make a good write up and make it a sticky about how important it is to warm your engine up good before people run them hard... There are so many people I know that start their car up and then bust down the street... pullin her up to 6 grand right off the bat.... It makes me cringe... Why dont people know this hurts motors? I mean all the valves, bearings, piston rings and cylinder walls are hating their lives when people do this....

 

Yep..sadly people just don't visualize what's going inside the engine. I let my oil get up to 80º before i drive under 2200rpm, 120º i keep it under 3k rpm, and 160 i let her rip. THis is OIL temp..the coolant temp is irrelevant. and this is BEFORE i put in the cam and valve springs. Now i keep it under 2500rpm until i'm at 150º and dont get on it till 175º

 

I'm glad other people think the same thing. I let my car warmup for a while everytime I drive it. I let it warmup for 1-2 minutes before I even kick it into gear and then I don't get it above 2000 rpm's until my engine temp gets up to 180*. I have rode with so many people that just fire it up, after it sat all day, and then floor it down the road within 10 seconds and I just wanna cry. I rode with a friend of mine the other day and he's got an awsome car and he fired it up and took of like a bat out of hell . I think it would be a great idea for someone to make a real mice rightup and make it a sticky!

 

i also drive like a little bitch until she is warmed up nice and good...lol

people prob look at us with (WTF faces) while we pussyfoot our cars around.

 

lol it sucks when u just turned on the car and ur at a light and a cobra (or whatever) pulls up and starts rev'n... ahh the choice that comes after that... roll down the window and say i cant its warmin up..

 

After you smoke them and they ask you what you have done to your car. Just tell them, "all I do is wait until the car fully warms up before i run it hard. And in doing so my car destroys almost any car out there i race including the same make and model car!"

 

u gotta let ur warm up, when I was 16 and rev the car cold. my dad would smack the **** outta me an say u can't do that, there no oil in the ******, u gotta let things get up to operating temp, plain as tha, nuff said, I never ropmp on the car till its warm and ready to go.

 

I make sure the temp gauge is past 180 before I go above 2500rpm.

 

ill wait a few seconds after starting it, and then baby until i get some heat going.

Ive heard a few times tht it isnt good for cars to sit for a long period of time from a cold start. ie- dont park your car and let it reach operating temp from a cold start by waiting for it to warmup. Cars should be under load when they are warming up. even if you are driving slow w/ low rpms

 

i let it warm up a bit. then keep the RPM's under 2 until the oil gets warm. oil is the real thing to watch not the water temp.

 

Wow, I know people that do the same thing. I normally start mine in the winter and wait for a hint of warm air to come through on the heater then leave. Like 1 or 2 minutes at most. Summer is around the same time. It isnt a getaway car so I don't understand why people do that anyway!

 

I start and go right away, even at -15F, however I keep the rpms below 1500 until the oil temp hits 100F, then I keep it below 2000rpm until the oil temp hits 150F. I rarely go full throttle until the oil temp is 180F or higher.

 

I realize different cars will warm their oil & coolant at different rates, but could some of you give us non-oil-temp-gauge types approximate coolant temps at which these oil temps are attained?

Thanks...

 

I usually let it idle for a minute or two as well, and i dont romp at all till the water tem has been at full operating temp for atleast 5 to 10 minutes. Before that, I keep it limited to normal 2500 shifts, maybe even less if its really cold.

 

what i do is watch the oil pressure guage. as the oil warms up, the pressure at idle gets lower and lower. as i make my daily commute, every red light i check it. once it rests below the halfway mark, i know its ready.

 

Isn't the real problem that you crank and start the engine with no oil pressure? That's where most of the damage is done and why some people install aftermarket parts to establish oil pressure before cranking the engine. I wouldn't advocate cranking high RPM's on a cold engine, but some of you guys are taking this to an extreme. I mean, there's cold and then there's COLD. It's about 20 degrees here right now and I'd say my engine is cold and needs to run a few minutes before I back out of the driveway. When it's 50 degrees or higher, I don't worry about it.

 

I love the guys that fire up their car, and sit there blipping the throttle repeatedly to 6 grand to speed up the process, letting everyone know they have a V8.

 

also, getting on the throttle with cold oil could open the oil fliter's internal bypass valve, letting unfiltered oil into your motor. i hope the car club members out there read this and stop getting on it right away after sitting at a meet somewhere for a while. its hell on the engine. like insanekamel said, it sucks looking like a ***** when someone wants to run, but they wont be buying you a new motor later, so forget them. Kenp, for what you said, next time you cahnge oil, pull the fuel pump fuse and see how long it takes to build up pressure, and imagine the car running for that long without oil pressure. thats an extreme example of what happens everytime you start your car. of course it partly depends on oil viscosity, but for the most part, colder oil won't flow as well as warm oil and can lead to bearings starving for oil.

 

It's not about WHEN you drive it. It's HOW you drive it when it's cold. It could be really cold out, and you can let the car idle for only 30 seconds, but you show the engine less than 2k rpms and very light throttle when you start driving.

The faster your oil warms up, the better it is for your engine and your oil(they will last longer). So it's better not to let it idle cause driving warms it up faster. The temperature here rarely gets below 40º..and it's 60+º most of the time. The only reason i let the oil get up to 80º now is cause i'm paranoid about my new valve springs. but that only takes a couple minutes. If the ambient temperature is like 70+ then just 10 seconds of idling should be fine.

That doesnt matter. If your engine is off, it makes no pressure. It should go up to 45psi within 2-3 seconds of startup and should make 10psi right away. If your engine isn't making oil pressure, you can warm it up for however long you want and it will still blow up.

 

I drive my car to school today, it was 5 degrees out. I never take it about 2100 before the temp is up to 160. I would have to guess that by that point the oil must be getting good. When it is really cold out I try not to take her above 5k.