I have a 1988 trans-am that I have recently put a very strong 355 tpi motor in. The car runs high 12 second quarter mile times.
My question is if I did not use a oil cooler on this motor would that make the oil run to hot and thin to cary good oil presure at an idle. The motor carries 45 psi at start up with straight 30.

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Mike s

 

If you're running a quality full-synthetic oil such as Mobil 1 it shouldn't be a problem. It also depends on how good your engine cooling system is and so forth. You may want to put an oil cooler in just to be safe, especially if your engine runs on the hot side, since they're not expensive.

 

The engine runs at normal tempatures. The problem is when I drive in stop and go trafic the oil gets very thin and presure drops to 10 psi.
I also tried the synthetic ,but it did not help. synthetic oil tends to run thiner than mineral oil.

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Mike s

 

10psi is fine at idle. Don't worry until it goes below 5psi, then switch to thicker oil. If your hydraulic lifters start having problems from low pressure then you have a problem. You will hear when that happens and the engine will not want to rev.

Generally for performance you want the oil to be hot, and the coolant to be cool.

ODB