Oil cooler and line questions

[wmhjr]

Carl, I hope to have the same issues. During normal driving, my oil temp is 180 even on hot days in traffic. It's at the track that's the issue. I have the Prc cooler on order now. Keeping my fingers crossed. I just need to deal with getting the oil to the cooler, as there is a challenge with that in my build.

[CarlC]

Too cold is not a good problem. Too high a viscosity + the inability to boil off water contamination = bad news. Excessive wear due to too high a viscosity, oil pump wear, no boiling off of water contamination, corrosion, etc. Synthetics and multi-viscosity oils do help, but maintaining a proper operational oil temperature is the best way to insure long engine life. 180* is nothing for a motor oil.

[wmhjr]

Originally Posted by CarlC

Too cold is not a good problem. Too high a viscosity + the inability to boil off water contamination = bad news. Excessive wear due to too high a viscosity, oil pump wear, no boiling off of water contamination, corrosion, etc. Synthetics and multi-viscosity oils do help, but maintaining a proper operational oil temperature is the best way to insure long engine life. 180* is nothing for a motor oil.

Carl, what I meant is that if I could lower my operating temp so that I'm worried about TOO cool I would prefer that. If nothing else, I could manually bypass the cooler most of the time and engage it only for track days. I seriously doubt that it will be the case. Keep in mind that the car is not run in "cold" weather at all. It's a May to Oct car here in PA. No heater, defroster, it's a vert, and salt comes out in Nov and isn't really washed off the road surfaces until May. That means outside temps for when the car is running varies from around 50s at the coldest, to 100 or so.

Currently, it takes a bit during normal street driving to get the oil to 180 but then that's where it stays. That being said, I'm not usually pushing the engine on the street. I'm running Brad Penn partial synthetic 20-50.

[wmhjr]

Thanks, guys. Here's my plan so far based on info I got here as well as over on Lat-G and from some other sources....

I have the PRC Extreme unit on order based on some feedback I got a few days ago. I'm not using the fan but will instead mount in front of the radiator using yet to be determined and fabricated.

I also have the Canton oil regulator that will be delivered in the next day or so. According to what I've researched so far, it's the one that has the highest potential volume throughput based on internal dimensions. Having talked to Canton, SRC, Fluidyne, and a whole bunch of other folks and based on the geometry of where I need to pull the oil connections from the block, I'm going with -10 lines.

I should have everything except the cooler by tomorrow night, and will work on how I'm going to get those block connections as well as fitting the oil filter and oil thermostat (hopefully). The Canton thermostat is pretty bulky, so there is a possibility that I won't be able to find a mounting location for it and would then switch to an Earls or Mocal.

I appreciate all the info, and will share pics as well as results once I get that far.

[wmhjr]

Update as of Aug 8th 2011.....

Made some progress (based on available time) on the oil lines/cooler setup. There is just so little room to work on this car. There is no room "under" the car, and no airflow that's safe other than in front of the radiator - unless I was going to fabricate a completely new core support and move stuff around in the engine bay.

Here is what the front end looks like sans grill and bumper...


I decided to use the PRC cooler in front of the rad, but also add a Canton oil thermostat. Here is the thermostat with some mockup fittings?


Oil comes in one side (shown on left in pic), and until oil hits 215deg it goes straight out the right side. When it hits 215, it goes out one of the middle ports to the cooler and then back in the other middle port, and then back out. It apparently has the least resistance and highest flow of any thermostat. I was concerned about a couple things. During normal "street" driving, my water temps are 190-195, and my oil temp is 180-190. At its worst, I got my oil to almost 300 before I shut it down, and water temp was around 220. I worried that during normal street driving, the hot oil in the cooler would reduce the cooling efficiency of the radiator and increase my engine temps in traffic. I was also worried that on cool days, I'd never get my oil temps to reasonable levels and run too cool oil. The thermostat solves for both of those issues.

I decided to vertically mount the cooler in front of the passenger side of the rad.




The vertical mounting brackets are 6061 aluminum 1/2"x3/4" stock, which I drilled lightening holes in.

I mounted the oil thermostat kind of behind the front bumper .


I decided to switch to a different Canton oil filter assembly, mounting it inside the engine bay kind of behind the passenger headlight. An oil line will run from the engine block plate up to between the passenger fender/inner fender, to the oil filter. It then comes out of the filter, back over toward the fender and down/around to get to the "in" port of the thermostat. The 2 cooler ports are already plumbed to the cooler. The final port will return oil back to between the fender/inner fender and then down to the engine block plate.



I installed the revised block plate with fittings last night. I only have left making 3 more lines. The engine to filter, the filter to thermostat, and the thermostat to engine.

[Ron in SoCal]

Hey Wm - nice write up so thx for that. I'm in the middle of planning my oil cooling system, was all set on the Canton thermo just like you and Penny, but a local racer supply shop steered me to Derale instead. Have you looked at this or have any opinions on the unit? It's -12 AN in and out, lightweight, small and easily mounted.

For lack of a better link:

http://www.etrailer.com/Accessories-...FQUSbAodf1l-Lg

[wmhjr]

Ron, I did a bunch of reading. I will say that it was hard to separate fact from opinion. I got a general "concensus" that the Canton was capable of significant more flow and less restriction due to much larger internal passages. The Canton unit is also actually -12 ports on the unit, which you can either stick with -12 or reduce to -10. I found some info on a Factory Five Cobra forum as well as some other places.

I am very concerned about restrictions, and that was the reason I went ahead with the Canton. Frankly, either would probably work and there are probably minimal differences - other than the Canton thermostat is 215deg and the Derale is 180deg. For my purposes, I would prefer the 215deg. I don't want to be cooling it when the oil is 185deg.

[Ron in SoCal]

Originally Posted by wmhjr

Ron, I did a bunch of reading. I will say that it was hard to separate fact from opinion. I got a general "concensus" that the Canton was capable of significant more flow and less restriction due to much larger internal passages. The Canton unit is also actually -12 ports on the unit, which you can either stick with -12 or reduce to -10. I found some info on a Factory Five Cobra forum as well as some other places.

I am very concerned about restrictions, and that was the reason I went ahead with the Canton. Frankly, either would probably work and there are probably minimal differences - other than the Canton thermostat is 215deg and the Derale is 180deg. For my purposes, I would prefer the 215deg. I don't want to be cooling it when the oil is 185deg.

Yes opinions do abound on this stuff! Derale does look to be straight in/out so I'm gonna try it. Looking forward to your next oil 'heat cycle' (track day) report....

[wmhjr]

Originally Posted by Ron in SoCal

Yes opinions do abound on this stuff! Derale does look to be straight in/out so I'm gonna try it. Looking forward to your next oil 'heat cycle' (track day) report....

We'll have to compare notes. One comment - neither unit is really "straight in/out". I'd say the Canton is closest - when the thermostat is closed anyway. The derale unit has the thermostat apparently 90 degrees to the oil flow blocking both in/out. I can't remember where, but I did find a site that had a cutaway of both units and the canton oil galleries were massive compared to the Derale, but honestly I don't know if it really works that way in reality. There are NO real "measured data points" that I could find comparing the two.

Honestly, I'm interested in just getting the car back on the road to test it under regular driving conditions just as much as on the track.