As it says, were tracking 106 degrees all summer. So when do we get to drive? In 14 years of teenership I've never had trouble staying out of the red zone. It's easy with a week of 100 and then back to the 90's....normal summer.

Your pick:
2500 rpm at 50 mph - side roads and very top of white zone
3500 rpm at 20 mph - freeway and very bottom entry of red zone

This is all traffic allows and shifting to keep temp in the white.
What's the best way to stay out of the red zone?

Does adding another small fan under the engine really help.
photo is my gauge 914-641-101-30
ps. nothing in the motor cooling fan, no leaks at the oil cooler, engine tin sealed, cooling flaps open

2 easy things to check:

Check to see that you have the proper oil temp sensor - should be the 200C sensor. Use of 120C or 150C sensor changes the calibration and will make it look like it’s running hotter than it is. Since you’ve not had the issue previously I’m not banking on this but worth checking.

Check timing to make sure you’re not running too much advance.

The usual stuff:
1. More air (hard) or cooler air (a snorkel high enough to tap into air not heated up by the cars around you in traffic, a duct vented through a cooler full of ice).
2. More oil cooling, i.e. an external oil cooler.

I’m going to add one more - make sure oil cooler isn’t plugged up with gunk. Cotton wood fluff, rodent nests, maple tree helicopter seeds, oil mist and dirt. I’ve seen all those over the years.

Bore scope it through spark plug hole

The air over/close to the pavement will far exceed the ambient air temp. I imagine the pavement is well over 150*. I think running hot will be the norm until, if, there is a break in the weather.

The sensor is the on that came with the motor 2.0. Is there a part number on the sensor or how to determine what # it is?

I agree with the other post. This is an exceedingly not summer and the surface temp is 150+
So it's too cold and wet in the winter and too hot in the summer to drive
That might just be the way it is......

On one of the sides of the hex it should have 200C stamped in.

Summer is 110+ around here. I found taking the back roads and keeping my foot out of it kept the temp low enough.

My first question is: Are things really hot?

Can you confirm with an hand held infrared gun? I have used one for years and feel they are at minimum reasonably accurate. I recently added a capillary tube temperature gauge to check oil temp, and an old school oil pressure gauge for information sake.

Exactly, the more load imposed on the engine, the higher temperatures will follow

I have found running around 3k vs 3.5k on the highway will lower the oil temps a good 20 degrees

+1 on cabman's advice. These motors like to be driven at 3-3.5k rpm. YMMV.

Move to San Diego?

BTW, my solution after leaving Texas is southwest Colorado. Never too hot in the summer, but good chance of snow on the road between early November and late April. That gives me a 6 month 914 season.

But my house is at 7000 ft, which means a 21% loss of hp, compared to sea level. And lots of the fun roads go higher.

My gauge is later version (post silver dot) that has much smaller red zone. However my oil temps never get to mid gauge, although it's only 95 Degrees around here

My rebuild has only about 500 miles since assembly, so I'm sure all cooling passages are clean. When building I paid a lot of attention to those small cooling passages in the cylinder heads. There was lots of casting flash restricting cooling air flow particularly near exhaust ports. In fact when first looking at the heads, gunk had fully closed off lots of those passages. Poor cooling flow at the heads leads to hot oil.

Bill,
I can show you where to mount an oil cooler that will help drop the oil temps.

Clay