In testing the 370Z on the dyno, its becoming apparent that the 370Z is going to have issues with oil temperature.  With simple dyno testing which only involves wide open throttle for a few seconds, the oil temperature rises to the 260 degree range.  In bumper to bumper traffic and even in normal semi brisk driving in the mountains, the temp soars into this range.  Note that this isn't even fast driving, just normal driving.

In my experience in motorsports, bearing load carrying capacity starts to get affected negatively when oil temps get above 260 degrees.  The 370Z seems to run in the range frequently which amazes me.  Now when putting around on the street you are not likely to hurt stuff but if you do the slightest bit of extended wide open throttle driving, things might start to get seriously bad.

I now feel that an oil cooler is mandatory if you do any sort of track day or drive hard in general. Even sporting type driving will probably put the temperature up high.   I think frequent oil change intervals using a high quality synthetic oil is going to be mandatory as well, even for causal use.

I have a few theories on why the oil temp is so high on this engine which I will probably do an article on in the magazine section in a few days.

Agreed. I can easily see this "oversite" in order to launch under 30K from Nissan, coming back to bite them in the arse as it will no doubt lead to become their (Nissan's) first formal recall on this vehicle in order to install a factory one.

What a shame.

Oh well, my oil cooler is in!! (You'll probably be writing about some of those before/after results in your article I would imagine). Looking forward to it.

So far the ccooler is working pretty well, the max temp is 250 degrees.  Before a close eye had to be kept on the temperature and the dyno runs stopped or you had to slow down until the temp dropped but now thats not an issue.

A 13 row Setrab heat exchanger was used but for racing its posible that an even bigger cooler is going to be needed.  This will require a thermostat for street use

Yeah I spoke with Tadashi and he mentioned putting a bigger heat exchanger on it and adding the thermostat because running at prolonged freeway speeds the oil was getting too COLD!! of all things. Haha..

I was thining of hitting Willow Springs on May 9th. Do you think the Setrab will give me any problems?

Not at all, it will help your car a lot!  Who are you going with?  I am a NASA instructor.

I believe this one is with Redline Track Events. I have gone with them and with SpeedVentures before.