What's the verdict on the need of oil cooler?
 

It may be still a bit early to ask such a question, but the tuners in Japan are claiming that 86/BRZ needs to install an oil cooler for track duties.

Has anyone been measuring or monitoring the oil temp at the track to confirm the above claim?

Thanks in advance.

need it

even on stock car

proof:

I was considering an oil cooler as a must due to the fact that I already have oil temp\pressure gauges installed ( Defi ) . They tell me the engine runs hot, even crusing the oil temp rarely gets below 95-100C. When you give your car some piece of a redline, it easilly climbs up 110-115C+. And that's not even a race or sprint - that's CITY (brave city, hehe) . Water stays dead 90-93 whatever happens. Never saw it higher.
I believe racetracking your BRZ may boil your oil without a cooler, so it's a must imo.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-n...%25D1%258F.JPG

HKS Tsukuba test
http://www.hks-power.co.jp/en/produc...004at008_g.gif

Would you mind posting datalogs? :)

which ones?

dont have any in logged format, just looking at the gauge is enough

if youre having fun and pushing this motor, SC or turbo, you needs an oil cooler
if you live in OC or climates similar to mine, even NA, you benefit one.

Here in NZ guys have reported oil temp of 130 on the track without oil cooler and we are in a pretty cool climate.

i have just put gauges in on tablet to check it on my next track day but these cars do seem to run hot in the oil department. On road driving, even keeping under 4,000rpm during run in the oil temp was around 100.

BTW @balance - nice gauge and single din stereo set up!


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proves my words above

you have to be nice to the cooling system prior being rude with tracking your engine :respekt:


Just one more thing -
Remember we run very waterish oil (0W20 for 99%population, and 5W30 for 1% wise guys), which tends to thin out VERY much when hot.
Oil pressure drops more the more hotter you run. Think it over.

well, the answer isnt thicker oil its cooler oil..:D

This. Address the cause, not the symptom.

Does the car come with a oil temp sensor from the factory? If your sensors are aftermarket, where are you taking the readings from?

yes and obd2

Yes, there is an oil temp factory OEM sensor. The OBD2 connector sends it but the cheap OBD2 ELM327 senders don't seem to be much good as no-one has worked out the PID for oil temp.

I use an HKS OB-Link read by a 7" tablet mounted in my car as an alternative to a gauge cluster although I do like the look of that single din cluster of @balance above.

My gauge tablet pic is here http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...7&postcount=12

And a couple of threads discussing getting the oil temp over the OBD2 connector are here
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23232
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23427


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MSTiFK8R and NZER,

Thanks for sharing your findings. What you guys have said pretty much echoes what I heard from the Japanese tuners. They also said that an oil cooler is a "must have" item even for a stock car based on track testings.

Now what I am curious is that why the heck toyota/subaru have released the car without an oil cooler???

I didnt wanna mess with tablets, computer, etc


I read both oil press&temp from the Greddy 12002802 sandwich plate under the oil filter

http://www.rallysportdirect.com/cata...02801_1_sd.jpg

the gauge is DEFI DIN-GAUGE, showing also water temp via separate sender in the coolant hose

http://a.d-cd.net/c31e72u-960.jpg

Any installed pictures (under the hood)? Did you have to use the little spacer to make room for the senders, or will they fit in spite of the oil cup?

The greddy unit comes with a spacer as well.

For what it's worth, I've seen sandwich plates read high.. as in 50-60 degress F higher than other locations. You can get massively different numbers in the pan and elsewhere in the engine, the sandwich filters tend to heat with the block which affects the temp sensor reading. The pan can be equally bad as it's cooled by the air somewhat.. What we really want to know is the temp of the oil in the galleries in the heads probably..

So if one is seeing 300F at the sandwich plate (which my race car does for 24 hours straight in endurance races) the real temp is going to be lower, in the race car it's more likely around 270F which I don't worry too much about - by too much I mean I don't worry at all. I'd prefer a little lower but any good oil can take that for awhile before shearing/etc becomes a problem IMO.

I'm not a lubrication engineer though.

270 is high I'd try a bigger cooler setup or better ducting
250 or cooler yet -in the low 240s is ideal for me
on an SC setup oil temp is really the only thing I watch and its not for the sc its for the motor
once boost is dialed in, u dont need to see what it is

Agreed that it would be better, but unfortunately it's hard to prove anything one way or the other. There are probably 200 race hours on this motor with 300 degree (at the plate) oil temps. Leakdown, compression, etc hasn't changed measurably at all. The previous engine lasted over that number of hours.. plus 214,000 HPDE/Street miles before it was raced.

That's why I'm fine with 270 or so, I haven't seen it cause any issues at all in my other cars with a lot more abuse than my BRZ will likely ever see. I know there's a massive logical fallacy in that arguement, but without a large number of statistics it's the same logical fallacy in the other direction.. both arguements are post hoc ergo propter hoc.

What's your opinion on oil weights? In the past I've adjusted based on clearances. So far I've kept to 0W-20 but was considering a swap to some 0W-30.

We haven't had any problems with our 2nd engine... the 1st engine's failures were not oil related at all.

We've ran some 30 minute sessions on both engines, sometimes back to back. 5W30 300V for both engines.

I run 300V in my s2k, and while the oil does get toasty (with the factory cooler), UOA shows no problems, and my engine is still strong after 115k mixed miles.

Subscribed to a great an informative thread. I'd let to know if oil temps truly are an issue when tracking this car or not. I'm going to put an inquiry to AiM to see if they can work on adding the oil temp channel, since it's apparently available through the obd2 port. Mike, do you guys run an oil cooler?

Not yet... although we've always planned on getting one at some yet-undetermined point.

Can it be done piece meal by someone with experience? sure
is the kit they sell nicely put together? yes
worth it? yes


Its a nice pc of kit I am buying for our other BRZ as well. from them. full price minus a lil discount, I'm a pretty frequent flyer. They are making a standard% on the item in my estimation,seems reasonable.
I dont think I would go and try and assemble this all to try and save $80-$100 bucks at the end.

got aPM asking for pics of feet, this is off perrins blog
I like the FEET, the kit works, heck I have tracked and tested the shit out of it for them.
There is a spacer they machined too for the puck that you need if doing self assembly. I can dig up a pic if you want..

So the verdict so far is:

Our oil does get hot (130C) during track driving but it doesn't cause any catastrophic failure. To be safe though, plan on getting an oil cooler.

are you aware of the cST you are running at 7000 rpms? Its exceeding the viscosity ideal for this oil pump, and no, at 7k it doesnt matter, but at 8k, it might

I also suspect youre loosing HP and TQ to viscosity. try tracking on fresh fill of 0w20(subaru SM is fine! if you want the good stuff the motul 0w20 is nice too), it also is faster at transfering heat than 5-30 so you will run cooler than you are now, and that may matter 5 months from now and have more power listening to my suggestion. if youre tracking it and change out your 0w20 every 3000 miles, you be GOLDEN. why the feel that you may benefit 5w30-'splain yoself!

if HTHS concerns you add a can of MOS2 like I do and you can raise the HTHS and pack load of your oil for a little extra coin you get better track protection than 5-30 with out the heat and power compromises of a thicker oil.

try it and and LMK what u find. dyno prove it if you doubt me!
once you keep the )w20 cooler, using the right cooler, you will see why I refer to 5w30 as the wrong oil
you will have more on tap esp up top

no offense meant, in my opinion the 5w30 hurting ya rather than helpin

-welcome(?)

We have every fluid tested at every changed by Blackstone ;)

I posted a few, but had no interest in the threads, so I stopped posting them.

The dyno showed zero loss from oil viscosity; we have around 300 pulls on our car between the two engines, as well as dynos from other FRS/BRZ to contribute. None of the cars show a significant variance in power output going from a 20 to 30 weight.

Same goes for other components in the driveline; we're running Gear300 in the trans and Gear300LS (slight overkill) in the diff, again, with no measurable difference in output.

lets get you some 0w-20 sustina(its in my sump sitting on a dyno right now!)
would love your feedback,and VOA on that one too!

I like the feet too. I'll have to ask if I can buy the stands/feet. I didn't see the feet in your original pic thats why I was asking about them :thumbup:

I can't justify the whole kit when I literally have everything I need (except for the Mocal thermostate/spacer they use which I can get from them or anyone else, I'd buy it from them just to support them though) sitting on a shelf next to the racecar. It looks like a 13 row mocal core, which is a nice cooler. I have a 19 row mocal core here so if it doesn't fit I may just buy the whole thing from them. I don't mind spending the money, I just don't want to waste it when I have most of the parts already :)

Hmmm... Now I'm even more confused.

a) 0w-20 or 5w-30
b) oil cooler or no oil cooler

I'm only going to track the BRZ 3-4 times a year, so probably the best thing to do for now is keep everything stock....?

Why is gmookher banned?

I have absolutely no idea. I didn't even know he was until I read your post.

As with any other component on the car, you want to prepare for when you have the *most* stress on your car. Tracking the car once isn't any harder during that individual day, than tracking it 20 separate times.

If you've never tracked before, you'll likely be okay stock.

If you're a heavy tracker or have experience, it's better safe than sorry. Good oil and an oil cooler are relatively cheap items.

Noob question but is there any negatives to having a oil cooler? Other then the obvious of cost, weight, and adding more oil? Example would be less cool air entering the radiator since technically it will add more heat that passes onto the radiator?

I'll probably go with Perrin or HKS, depending on if I can get the HKS for cheaper then Perrin but I like the Perrin OEMish look

I've got about 4 years experience. In my other cars I run 1:56 at Sears Point, 1:45 at Laguna Seca, and 2:07 over the top at Thunderhill. I was hoping that the stock BRZ platform was light weight enough and low enough on power to avoid heat issues at the track, but it looks like that might not be the case.

Your recommendation of 5w30 makes sense to me, but I would have liked to hear more details on why gmookher has a differing view.

I'm probably only going to track the BRZ 3-4 times a year, and I'd really like to keep it as stock as possible. If I have to get an oil cooler, though, I will. Thanks for your help again, as always. :thumbup:

What's your other car(s) and their mods and tires? I do a 1:45 at MRLS in a stock s2000 with just square 255 RS3 :p

Stock boxster spyder running NT01s at Laguna. My friend with the same car and setup runs 1:41, so obviously I've got much more to learn. I'm hoping that the BRZ will teach me how to drive the spyder faster. No doubt you're a much better driver than me. I'm not a novice, though. :happy0180:

Totally OT, but since I have your attention, how many miles do you think I should have on the car before my track day in March? I figured 1000 miles would be ok, but why not get an opinion?

Cooler oil will result in lower water temp. Even if an oil cooler is located in front of radiator and there is enough space between the oil cooler and radiator, the air will be able to get around the cooler and hit the radiator.

Complete kits offered by tuning companies are nice in that they come with everything including installation instructions, but you can achieve the same by assembling your own kit and save money.

Would some please put up a DIY oil cooler kit?

Doborder!!!! Your first post! LOL.

Still working on getting one

Because he single handedly ruined the FI sub-forum along with several long, negative and insulting rants.

edit: Ruined might be unfair.