Oil Coolers...........Water or Air?

[Graham-P]

The time for buying an oil cooler is fast approaching. I have looked at the Laminova water cooler but I'm having difficulty in justifying the extra costs. Has anyone experience of these (or both) coolers, are they worth the extra money, do they perform better than the air/fan coolers?
I would mount it down where the fuel pump would normally go on the nearside (not using that space as I have a single Holley Blue Top sucking from both tanks).

Graham

[GreenV8S]

Oil-to-water coolers have the advantage of acting as an oil heater during warmup. But you do have to make sure your cooling system is up to the job.

[chuntington101]

ihave heard of a few race cars running oil to water! also i hear they get the oil upto temp quicker than with a conventional cooler!

Chris.

[davefiddes]

ultimacz fitted an oil/water cooler to his car to cure high oil temps on track. His reasoning that at low speeds/idle you don't need oil cooling capacity but at high speeds when you do need solid oil cooling there is an excess of water cooling capability. It seemed to work well for him and I was certainly swayed by the argument.

[ultimacz]

I can say that I am more than happy with the oil/water cooler. Here is a picture of the installation (posted it already some time ago)



I have tested it now for one year, under all weather and driving conditions, including city traffic in hot weather, and on track. I have found just advantages, no disadvantages yet.
- Oil and water reach operating temperatures faster
- oil and water temps are more balanced, i.e. water temps do not drop that much during highway cruising and oil temps do not rise that fast/high on track; the highest oil temp reading (on track) dropped from 130C to 110C, highest water temp reading 90C (after sitting half an hour in hot city traffic); usual operating temperature now is 80-85 water and 85-95 oil
- the oil cooling capacity is MUCH higher compared to the std. factory air oil cooler arrangement, at least on my car. The std. cooler is not much in the air stream and if you fit a fan (which I did) it just blows more hot air into the engine bay - makes things just worse...

Of all mods I have done on my GTR (and there were many, and not all of them successful ) the oil/water cooler and the ceramic coating of the exhaust were the best ones.

[steve_d]

Is that hose a custom made one piece or is it a number of sections awaiting jubilee clips?

Steve

[greenv8s]

It looks as if there are some swaged ends under the hose so I guess it's waiting for some hose clips.

[andygtt]

The only time I ever had high oil temps was on track were it was way higher than the water temp with the air cooled arrangement. This was before I had the side pods fitted though.

This along with Ultimcz experience leaves me seriously thinking that water cooling is the way to go on my project as faster warm will be better for my turbos.

how much of a cost difference is it?

[ultimacz]

steve_d said:

Is that hose a custom made one piece or is it a number of sections awaiting jubilee clips?

Sorry, I had it done by a company so I don´t know exactly what they used. But what I remember it is not custom made, just piece-wise ordered from a catalogue, like demon tweeks. You can get all different shapes and angles.

[Graham-P]

Andy, the 395mm is equal to a 235mm x 25 row air cooler and the best I could find was from Europa for £272 then the extra coolant hoses/inserts will be about £100. I guess you still need to fit a thermostat to the Laminova?
The cost of a 25 row cooler is £110 from Speedflow.
I understand the benifits in fitting one, I'm just struggling with the extra cost at the moment.


Graham

[ultimacz]

Found a better photo which shows how the sections are connected (through some std. "connecting tube", don´t know what´s the right expression in English). Looks like the clips are still missing, I could check in the evening in the garage if you want, have never really looked at it.

[steve_d]

Graham-P said:

Andy, the 395mm is equal to a 235mm x 25 row air cooler and the best I could find was from Europa for £272 then the extra coolant hoses/inserts will be about £100. I guess you still need to fit a thermostat to the Laminova? The cost of a 25 row cooler is £110 from Speedflow. I understand the benifits in fitting one, I'm just struggling with the extra cost at the moment. Graham

If you agreed that the ideal air cool system should include an oil thermostat so as not to over cool the oil and allow it to heat up quicker then the stat and its associated pipes and fittings could well make up the difference in cost.
I don't believe the water cool system would need a stat as all will heat up together.

Steve

[peterpsg]

I think Setrab does a similar style cooler as well - another Scandinavian outfit?!

I spotted some on the Pace Products website amongst other various Googles hits, they seem to be good quality & reasonable value as well, since I was looking at hooking up a remote filter head, I'll check them out when I visit them in the nearish future...

A QUESTION:
Who knows what way the flows is in the SBC oil filter (with respect to these remote filter heads) ???

i.e. left-right or right-left or inner-to-outer etc etc!!!

Cheers,
Peter

[steve_d]

The oil comes from the pump up through the rear main bearing housing. From here it goes into the filter housing and into the outside of the filter. Having passed through the filter material it goes back up the threaded centre tube. If the filter is blocked the oil passes through a relief valve in the filter housing.

Steve

Edit....It is general practice with performance SBC to block the relief valve in the filter housing.

>> Edited by steve_d on Friday 10th February 21:48