I've recently bought a Viking 55 MY with a pair of 8v92TAs in their 750hp spec. They´ve got about 3000 hours each, and appear to have been very well maintained - starting great, making good power, and surveyed well.
I'm considering a wee tinkering
project - building a temperature data logging system using a Raspberry Pi and some temp sensors that I could strap to the outside of the
engine in interesting points. The main VDO and Murphy Gauge sensors (water temp only) are all working fine. These would just be additional.
Mainly this is just for interest, but could hopefully be of some value in establishing and tracking
engine temps over time(?) The sensors would just be fixed to the outside of the various areas of the engine - so will obviously not give accurate point readings, but should be able to pick up on changes over time. The sensors are
cheap and small, so I could easily go with a dozen per engine without too much hassle. I was inspired by people who have been using IR heat
guns to log engine temps manually - which seems pretty labour intensive and potentially inaccurate compared to what I´m planning...
Two questions -
Would this data be of interest for tracking performance over time? Could it suggest maintence issues before they become major? And could they potentially help with diagnostics or a more detailed engine alarming system - for example a cylinder that was running hotter/cooler than others or a
cooling circuit that wasn´t performing right.
Where would you suggest adding sensors? My guessing was -
- Raw water intake and outputs (to measure the differential and therefore rough performace of the cooling system)
- Coolant circuit at the heat exchanger intake and output (same idea)
- Oil cooler intake and output (same idea)
- Gearbox oil cooler intake and output (same idea)
- Several on the crankcase in a location that could start detecting if an invidual cylinder was cooler than others (any suggestions for where this might work?)
- On the turbos, near the oil outlet to approx shaft temp, plus on intake and exhaust sides for rough air temps.