http://www.stratosec.com/www.stratos...1&d=1264497241

UPDATE- Mocal laminar flow oil/water cooler system-- I installed the cooler and so far it seems to be working great. (More later)

FITTING- I spliced the unit into the cool water hose out of the radiator (on the driver's side) and used an oil sandwich plate to feed the oil down to the cooler. It was a VERY tight fit with the medium size Mocal cooler (7" plus the length of the water fittings), and what's left of the original hose now only serves to link the cooler to the engine and the radiator-- acting more like couplers than anything else. The fit overall is nearly perfect, but it took me a while to get it just right. The trick was to cut the hose to allow for a short 90-degree link to the engine and a very, very short piece of hose with a 45-degree angle out of the radiator. I ordered the cooler with 1.5" slip-on water fittings and AN10 oil line fittings.

TESTING- I had noticed oil temps over 230-degrees before installation when running the car hard. In addition, on a 80-degree day I had temps of 218 while on the interstate. While I have not been to an auto-x since install, I've tried to simulate one and did repeated hard pulls in first and second gear, several high RPM runs and the oil temp never went over 212f. For interstate driving on a 90-degree day the car didn't go over 208! Even better, the oil temp seems to come down much faster than before once you stopped running the car hard. Within one mile of driving after a hard pull it went from 212 to 204f.

I saved anywhere from $100 to $150 over the installation of most of the oil/air coolers designed for the car, still have plenty of room for an intercooler if I ever go FI, and may well have a superior setup for auto-x and DD as I don't have to worry about the oil never being too cool or too hot.

Pics of it installed would be great

Yes please! I have been researching this for a long time.

What size cooler did you get, small or medium? And what size barbs for the coolant hose? What size oil cooler lines?

[QUOTE=What size cooler did you get, small or medium? And what size barbs for the coolant hose? What size oil cooler lines?[/QUOTE]

If you read my last post you'll see I answered all your questions there.

I'll try to get a photo up in the next couple days.

Where are those pics at yo?

LAMINOVA OIL COOLER

Sorry for the delay...thought I'd have my header in by now and take pictures from under the car too. BUT..it's not here, so you'll have to settle for these shots. See info on what/how I did this in my earlier posts on this thread.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/pictu...pictureid=5666
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/pictu...pictureid=5667
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/pictu...pictureid=5668

Any thoughts on how often (and then how long) I would want the oil to get above 212 to cook off any water contamination in the oil?

My cooler started leaking tonight.. the core itself. Need to look into it tomorrow. Fun times.

Bump for a great question.:popcorn:

As much as possible!

I've been reading a lot about oil temperatures and the variations in oil temp throughout an engine. In some applications, the oil is 50-degrees hotter at the pistons than the reading at the sensor (usually a sensor in the bottom of the oil pan).

From what I've read, the location of the temp sensor on the BRZ next to the filter is reportedly a good one in that it gives you an idea of oil temp before it goes into the engine.

So, If I'm getting oil temps above 200-degrees by the filter, then it seem likely that the oil is getting hotter inside the major, working parts of the engine. Soooooo....I'm guessing that the oil does go above 212-degrees on a fairly regular basis, which means that water is probably being boiled off.

Any thoughts from someone with a mechanical or engineering background?

The evaporation mainly occurs in the crank case, and goes out through the breather system.

I have an autox this weekend. I'll keep track of oil temps and post the results.

I just got back from an SCCA autox. The laminova cooler worked perfectly. The oil peaked at 211-degrees(f) a couple of times and then went back down to 202 when I got back to the paddock.

Given this is the temp of the oil after it's been cooled by the radiator, I'm reasonably certain the oil is getting hot enough to boil off any water contamination.

Additionally, the coolant temp never went above 200....and it only hit this temp when I came back to get in line for another run and left the car running for a few minutes at a standstill.

I think this is a great setup for a DD and for autox.

I was going to wait for data (car only has 500 miles on it) but i ended up putting the Mishimoto oil cooler kit on my FR-S.

I can't give any data at this point, but the kit is really nice quality.

I'm not a Mishimoto fan boy (their radiators seem to leak like sieves), but the quality on the cooler/lines/plate is just as good as Mocal. Actually the cooler looks almost identical to the Mocal one I had on my STi. Except for the sticker on top of course.

Install is fairly easy and clean, and i like the centered position. It doesn't have a thermostatic sandwich plate - so keep that in mind if you live in very cold climates. I prefer not having one... make it a lot easier to check the oil, since it doesn't change in the pan dramatically like it does with a thermostatic plate (my experience). I would have preferred to build my own custom fit kit, but the price of this one (and the great sandwich plate adapters) swayed me.

I'll definitely be logging the next time out with the car and will report back.

-Scott

I'm not sure if this has been asked in this topic already as I only found a short number of posts talking about autocross / auto-x in this topic but is an oil cooler absolutely necessary for autocrossing about 2x a month?

To give you more detail, for the competition (time recorded) runs, there would probably be about 3 or 4 runs with breaks in between each run (because you have to wait about 5 minutes for everyone in your run group to go after each one of your runs)

After about a 20-30 minute break in which no cars are running, there might be 4-6 extra runs but these wouldn't have more than about 2 minutes between each run.

I don't think it is absolutely necessary. Adding one might protect your engine a little more, give you a tiny bit more power, and allow you to use oil a little longer, but you could get away without it for autocross given the oil temps I was getting before I added my cooler.

I've got to be completely honest. I can't fathom any autox course putting a thermal strain on the FRZ. You're talking about roughly a minute on course and less than that at full throttle.

A 20 min road course session that consists of keeping the revs about 5k the entire time? Yes.

If I was just autox'ing I wouldn't bother.

whatever oil cooler you want you may like our take off plate.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...pse6f5966a.jpg
drilled for sensors too
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...ps985ebe53.jpg

no thermostatic option available.

I'm going to be doing auto slalom about several times a year in the summer and I didn't think an oil cooler would be necessary?

My car is a DD and our winters are harsh. I would assume that it's bad to have an oil cooler in winter (ie sub -10C)?

Can someone explain to me what I am looking at here?

Totally agree with you, but people are going to buy a cooler and throw it on anyway. Some will do it and not even autocross just 'because' or 'just in case'.

you are looking at a "sandwich plate" that was actually designed to work in your engine bay, Robi and I both saw the need for a part that would work for everyone, and he bribed me with enough redbull to get some parts in time for his latest batch of oil cooler/radiators.

You're seeing is an 'oil cooler sandwich plate'....a piece that fits between the engine and the oil filter so you can run oil out through lines to get to an oil cooler.

What's nice about this...at least I think it's this way...please chime in Robbie!!...is that it also serves as a spacer.' Most oil sandwich plates are more horizontal in design and will not fit on a BRZ/FRS without having a spacer between them and the car to get them high enough above the engine so the oil connectors will fit above the rim of the 'oil catch' that's under the filter. Spacers work, but they also allow for the possibility of leaking.

Additionally, many oil sandwich plates do not have a hole in them for a sensor...like an oil pressure or temp. sensor. This one does.

Nice design! I wish it had come out before I did my cooler.

Did you get that fixed yet?

At Roebling this weekend with overcast skies and intermittent rain. Oil temps ran 260 to 270 without a cooler. I have the Robi special in the garage that will be installed before any more track weekends.

Ran at Sebring again without a cooler.

Last time (June 2013 in the high 80s and low 90s) oil temps on Day 1 were 290-300*, then Day 2 oil temps were 285-294*, and I was running, and then yesterday, with temps in the 90s, oil temps were 278 to 284.

Weird that oil temps keep getting lower and lower.... In June I was running German Castrol 0w30, yesterday I was running the Toyota 0w20, but theoretically the heavier weight oil should help keep oil temps down. Back in June the car had 1k miles on it and it was the first track event with the car, and yesterday was the 3rd event with 2k miles on the clock.

And water temps on every day have been between 205 and 215, so water temp is fine.

Still not convinced on the need for an oil cooler.



Also had the pleasure of seeing this thing on track. Very surprised to see it running stock calipers! Not sure if they are running an oil cooler.


https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...85371497_n.jpg

Check out this post I just put up on some data collection.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showt...53#post1156053

And where would one find these for sale? I went to a Robispec site and could find no listing for an oil cooler, sandwich plate or anything to do with engine cooling. In fact, no engine part were listed at all...

A link would be appreciated. I am prepping my car for an October Sebring HPDE and need to get a move on.

For autocrossers who might be logging... what kind of oil temps do you see?

Some have said 130

130C? Wow that's a lot hotter than what I would have suspected for autocross.

Cooler and heavier oil means your pistons are getting fried.

uh, where are you drawing this logic from? care to elaborate how running 0w30 vs. 0w20 will "fry" your pistons?

Thicker oil is going to offer slightly better protection at those high temps. I'm not saying dump gear oil in the car, it's one step increase in viscosity, which Subaru actually recommends for harsh/aggressive driving

Heavier oil -> less flow at high rpm -> less cooling of pistons=hotter pistons. Thicker (synthetic) oil does very little in terms of oil film strength. Heavier oil recommendation in the manual is probably a carryover from old manuals written for dyno oil. I just run 0w-20.

Sure, definitely understand. I think the old logic behind running heavier weight is for better protection, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that 0w30 from 0w20 will "fry" your pistons?

My Subaru service adviser specifically said to run a heavier weight oil if I plan to track the car.

is there any issue running a 0w-20 weight oil with an oil cooler as far as oil pressure? I thought I saw someone post about that indicating you needed to up the weight to compensate.

In general I haven't seen Perrin, Mishimoto or any of the folks offering a kit mentioning this. Has anyone tested their oil pressure with a cooler?

Yes I believe @Dave-ROR did some testing and found a pressure drop when installing the oil cooler, and that 0w30 fixed the issue, but I'd check with him to verify.

Can someone cite what the oil pressure should be at a specific RPM? I'd like to know to see if I've lost or gained pressure by adding my oil/water laminova cooler.