There are hand held remote sensing IR thermometers out there in modeldom now-mainly for the benefit of the R/C car guys who are rather cavalier in their treatment of engines-it would be a simple job to borrow one of these to get a feel for the running temperature of a diesel-obviously the piston and cylinder will run a lot hotter that the exterior-but taking readings at different locations on the engine-and the exhaust gas temp will give a fairly indicative answer to the sort of temperatures we are talking about during operation..I with Ray on this-I doubt we get much beyond 200C in normal operation.
ChrisM
'ffkiwi'