oil cooler mounting-alternatives.

[southwind25]

We have a awesome tour planned for the comming weekend...also the weather boys are calling for 90 degrees!
So, i better think about keeping this engine cool, and was thinking about adding an oil cooler.

we figure the sandwich adapter between the filter and housing would be fine...but was looking for some thoughts on the cooler itself and mounting it.

We have never liked mounting an oil cooler in front of a radiator..why add heat from one to another? but theres not much room otherwise. we were thinking maybe a rail mounted long type cooler attached low and to one of the front frame rails between the engine and bodywork-framerails on the passenger side. we just want to try and help it out a little, we havnt had overheating problems................yet

any thoughts-pictures-ideas?

[EburgE]

I have no experience with this, but I always wondered whether an oil cooler could be mounted on one of the footwells, preferably on the cooler intake side. Might act as a heat sink to reduce the cabin temperature?

[slngsht]

do you have any room on the bottom of the car in the engine bay? use a fan to suck air through?

[xflow7]

I don't have any ideas on location, but thought I'd mention one other thing.

You may well already be aware, but given that your car is largely for street use, you will almost definitely also want to fit a thermostatic bypass in the feed to the oil cooler so that the oil will come up to temperature properly in cold weather / plodding around.

[southwind25]

well we ended up with a "Earls" cooler that we put on the bottom of the car between the frame rails. it's down behind the steering rack mount.
we added a little deflector to scoop a few puffs of air up into it as well.
Braided lines and earls fittings should make it sturdy and leak free.

[Winston]

If that doesn't work to your liking, you might look into a oil-water cooler as used in the Toyota MR2 and probably other vehicles. It's basically a tube-and-shell exchanger, so it can be mounted anywhere in the engine bay without the need for an ambient air source. Of course, this does transfer the heat to the coolant -- but if you overwhelm the radiator's capabilities you can always fit a thicker radiator.

[JBH]

I don't think you need one for street driving. Are you measuring oil temperatures now and they are running excessively high?

Very few street cars carry oil coolers, except Porsches and that is only because oil is the cooling fluid.

Ninety degrees is really nothing and shouldn't be a problem if your cooling system is working properly.

[Boxologist]

all of the turbo subarus are running coolant cooled oil coolers. i think gert was using a Laminar coolant oil cooler.

[7evin]

Hey Robert,

We use 2 different oil coolers on our car.

The oil for the motor goes thru a Mocal unit which is a laminar type water to oil cooler.
it uses water going to the radiator to cool and heat the oil. Works like a charm.

http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/1937487850_mocal.jpg

The other oil cooler is for the Rotrex supercharger and it is a very rugged frame rail mount
transmission cooler from Jegs.
http://tinyurl.com/59vm6p

http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/557638146_Resized_DSCN0022.jpg

Just some thought to chew on
Cheers
7evin

[RDROCKT]

I can vouch for the Mocal Laminova oil to water cooler. Very compact (mounts in the lower radiator hose and allows the oil to come up to temperature faster than the coolant. When the thermostat opens, the coolant and the oil temps are within a degree or two of each other. No matter how fast or how long we run, the oil temp is under control and the pressure is good.
No drawbacks that I have found.

[southwind25]

we looked at the jegs rail fin type. it was very nice and robust, but also a bit heavy.

i just wanted to cool it a few degree's since it willl mostly see spirited road driving, but also a bit of autocrossing and track days in the near future. I might not even "need" things much cooler, but we have always run our cars on the conservative-cooler side.

we also hasd budget in mind, even though we still went braided with good fittings