oil cooler mod, tell me why this won't work?
 

I have had a Cusco oil/water cooler installed on the car for a couple of years now. For anyone unfamilar, it plumbs off the rad hose on the hot side, through the donut cooler under the oil filter and back to the rad cold side/water pump side. It is really an oil warmer and does very little to cool the oil. I wish to enhance it.
Someone on here made a reference to a separate cooling circuit for this but that's a pump/reservoir/cooler. I was thinking about something simpler.
What if I put a 16 row "oil" cooler in the coolant circuit with the Cusco oil cooler. So from the hot side rad hose, through the new cooler (now air to coolant) and back to the Cusco cooler. Some quick online calculations suggest I could drop the coolant temp hitting the Cusco cooler by 10 deg. C. During everyday driving I could simply block off the new cooler.
Upsides: No oil leaks, lower system pressure, less chance of damage.
Downsides: Not sure of actual effect on oil temp. since I would just be moving the baseline temp downward.
Ok, tell me why this won't work like I think it might and yes, I have an air/oil cooler. It's in a box in my shed.

So you're essentially adding a second radiator for the coolant? or am I misunderstanding? You already have a coolant radiator, if you want to cool the coolant in hopes of lowering oil temps, this is not a good way to do it. Get a real oil cooler to cool the oil. Get a real radiator to lower coolant temps.

Jackson Racing makes an upgraded radiator / oil cooler, which may be more what you're looking for. It's also stock location, but I'd look to upgrade the oil lines, I've read stories of them leaking / kinking easily. Sell the oil cooler you've got now to recoup some of your expenditure.

http://www.ft86speedfactory.com/jack...2013-ft86.html Here is a link to the product I am referencing.

Why not just reverse the flow and pull your coolant from the cool side and put it back to the hot side? Or from the cool side to the cool side? I'm not sure how the pressure differential would be but I could think of ways to make it work for you. Adding an extra radiator adds complexity and weight.

Interesting idea to reverse the flow direction but don't think it is possible without a pump which could cause air bubbles? The addition rad would be the size of an oil cooler so weight wouldn't be much of a concern.
I am looking at the jackson racing dual cooler but those hoses and how tight everything is doing the install makes me nervous.

From a power perspective, those oil coolers are almost cosmetic. Just toss it.

It's not an "oil warmer" because if you're at operating temps, the oil temp will always sit higher than your coolant temps.

If you want to improve this cooler, get a larger radiator. If you add a second radiator, you just increase the risk of something malfunctioning that will cause damage later on.

If you want a more efficient oil cooler, just get an external dedicated unit. The Cusco/Forester unit works well because you don't plumb oil outside of the engine, so if something fails it's just coolant and not more critical things like your engine lubricant. To what extent you want to accept risk is on your own.

-alex

Ok, all advice duely noted. Think I am gonna do front camber first and worry about oil later.

My OEM heat exchanger works well at bringing up my oil temps from cold.

Typically my oil is at temp at least twice as fast.

This is why I installed it.

As for cooling, it has a really small effect really, and once heat soaked has a negligible effect.

These things are not new, plant and heavy industries have been using simular exchangers for years, to bring up and stabilize fluid temps, they work as designed (which isn't always the same as the aftermarket car parts marketing/advertising).

Great mod for a street car, both NA and boosted because you don't need to wait as long for your temps to stabilize, thus you can lean on it sooner, why do you think the WRX STI and other makes running turbos has them as standard, hell, old RB26's had them to bring up their oil temps from cold.

If you want to look into their heating/cooling effects there is information on the Googles IRT thermodynamics which explains it way better than the monkey typing this post.

https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/do...ocID=TECH00133

Good info on sizing and general rule of thumb stuff.