engine oil cooler

[jlat]

hello people; I was just reading in a Good Guys mag. about a guy having a high coolant temp. in his hot rod. He replaced his shroud with a alum., one as the heat would distort the plastic one and got a oil cooler as suggested to him. He says It made a big difference with coolant temp. in his ride with a large V8 in it.
Any of you turbo heads gave one a shot and what happened? The article also hit on heat soak and the oil cooler helped that also.
IBBY

 

[Coelacanth]

The stock turbo Buicks' radiators had engine oil coolers built-in already. I did an F-body rad swap in my GN, and that rad doesn't have EOC ports, so I added an external EOC...a common "upgrade".

 

[jlat]

hello; So did it help in coolant temp.? What did it do for you?
IBBY

 

[Coelacanth]

I would like to answer that, but since I replaced the whole radiator (the original one was full of crud, calcium deposits and puking coolant every time I ran the car for 5 minutes) at the same time as I added the EOC, I couldn't tell how much extra cooling was done by the EOC. But I can say that this summer, on the hottest day, it never went above 183 degrees.

 

[Boxcars]

I don't run the TR oil cooler on my GN powered el camino. Running a camaro radiator I've experienced absolutely no overheated running in the five years since I did the conversion. In fact, overall, it runs pretty cool.

 

[machinegun]

I will provide my own experience here.

First your article probably concerns some car with a BB chevy ford or mopar and who knows what done to the engine heads and compression. Mix that with who knows what fuel, radiator size and config. An oil cooler on a BB chevy bored 60 over sitting in a 5 window coup with a vertical flow rad with little or no draw through may provide some help. However my experience is not enough to be that useful. Of course I have ensured the cooling system was up to the task at hand.

From a TB perspective, I have run with the factory oil cooler and with out. I have seen no noticeable difference in coolant temp either from my scan tool or from my gauge.

I do run an oil cooler as I believe the oil cooler helps to keep the oils viscosity more stable. This should help ensure better oiling throughout the system.

Hope this helps.

 

[earlbrown]

If your radiator is 100% taxed out due to flow problems, size problems, engine problems, whatever... and you add heat from the oil system, then, yes, it will run hot. Without reserve cooling capacity, there's no room to take on additional cooling load. In the first example the underhood temps are so great it's warping plastic shrouds. That sounds like a flow problem to me.

The main problem with cooling our cars is trying to do it with a 30 years old radiator with horizontal flues... 2/3'd of which are physically clogged. And the one's that aren't clogged are physically coated with an insulating layer of crud that keeps the heat in.

Keep in mind, internal trans/oil 'coolers' aren't actual coolers at all. They're more like stabilizers. Water comes up to operating temp faster than oil and transfluid. And the water is the only one that has a thermostat to speed up the warming process. Internal coolers help put heat INTO the oil and trans until they get up to temp.

If the output of your radiator is 160* it cannon possible cool oil down unless it's well above 160 itself. And if the oil is so ungodly hot it's overheating your water, you need an external oil cooler to put that heat into the airstream instead of nailing the cold side of the radiator.

 

[bison]

If his coolant temp is high and the radiator isn't wasted he likely needs more air flow. It takes a lot of air to cool a little water


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[bison]

If your radiator is 100% taxed out due to flow problems, size problems, engine problems, whatever... and you add heat from the oil system, then, yes, it will run hot. Without reserve cooling capacity, there's no room to take on additional cooling load. In the first example the underhood temps are so great it's warping plastic shrouds. That sounds like a flow problem to me.

The main problem with cooling our cars is trying to do it with a 30 years old radiator with horizontal flues... 2/3'd of which are physically clogged. And the one's that aren't clogged are physically coated with an insulating layer of crud that keeps the heat in.

Keep in mind, internal trans/oil 'coolers' aren't actual coolers at all. They're more like stabilizers. Water comes up to operating temp faster than oil and transfluid. And the water is the only one that has a thermostat to speed up the warming process. Internal coolers help put heat INTO the oil and trans until they get up to temp.

If the output of your radiator is 160* it cannon possible cool oil down unless it's well above 160 itself. And if the oil is so ungodly hot it's overheating your water, you need an external oil cooler to put that heat into the airstream instead of nailing the cold side of the radiator.

The coolers in the radiator are absolutely coolers as designed. 140-150 water will do a damn lot of cooling to 200* degree oil. The radiator/fans are expected to bring the water temp down well below the thermostats opening temp. If this isn't happening more airflow is needed.


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[earlbrown]

As designed they are... but a clogged radiator that's already taxed that can't cool it's self has now chance at cooling additional fluids.


And you are defiantly right on the air 'vs water cooling capability. For those that don't know a cubic foot of water has 62.4 pounds of mass... a cubic foot of air is 8 100ths of a pound. That's right at an 800:1 ratio just to find the mid point (at 100% efficiency which isn't possible).