Oil coolers for DD/HDPE cars...
 

I recently picked up a 2017 BRZ as a daily/track day car to replace my 8th gen SI. My track use consists of 4-5 two hours track sessions a season. I have been reading up on this car quite a bit and it appears that an oil cooler is an ideal upgrade if the car sees track time. However, they are not without problems considering that I live in the North and our harsh winters can cause quite a bit of problems. Problems include oil never getting up to operational temp (-13F ambient is not uncommon), exposure to road salt rotting out the cooler and hardware, potential leaks etc. I also don’t want the oil cooler to create any warranty issues down the road as it still carries a 3 year powertrain warranty. On the contrary, I have also heard of members indicating as that as long as you use a quality synthetic and up the weight to 5W-30, an oil cooler is not an absolute requirement, especially with the relatively limited track use. I am sure there are members in the same situation as me and I wanted to gauge what others have done. In the past, I have never needed an oil cooler on the past cars but they were all Honda B and K series engines which are quite robust.

Thanks.

There are a few companies that make oil coolers with thermostatic sandwich plates to help with cold starts. There is also the OEM WRX/Forester oil cooler kit that might be of interest to you. There is definitely the risk of the warranty issues if the dealer is picky. The OEM version would be much easier to hide since its really just a sandwich plate and a couple small coolant hoses.

I'm using a mishimoto cooler with the thermostatic sandwich plate. It's not had any troubles to-date. We've seen <10*F a couple of times.

FYI, even with the thermostatic plates, oil will still bleed through and it will cool down. I live in Chicago, and during the winter months I just had to shove a piece of cardboard in between my bumper grille and the oil cooler itself and it helped to keep the temperature in check. When the warmer months came, I removed it.

You can block off the cooler core in the winter to keep air flow off of it, should help w/ reducing the effect of the cold weather on the core. The FXT style heat exchange may help in your case, but they often don't provide enough capacity for extended track use.

Did I read 2 hour session correctly? Like non stop?

Most of the better "plates" have a thermostat built in. In the winter duck tape over the oil radiator will help. Your engine is then running as the stock setup, as the extra cooler is only an add on.

The thermostat allows 10% flow until 30F degrees below full open at which point it slowly opens proportional to the temperature, so a 180F thermostat will have 10% flow below 150F, at 150F it starts to open so at 165F i believe it should have 55% flow. This 10% flow is to eliminate drastic temp differences in the oil cooler/lines vs the oil in the pan/block. Because of this i replaced my 180F mocal thermostat with a 192F thermostat, as well as running the forester heat exchanger. This helps get my temps to 170F in a reasonable amount of time in cold weather without having to block off the oil cooler.

Thank you for all the suggestions. I have thought about blocking off the oil cooler in the winter but that doesn't help with salt exposure (if it's even a problem), potential leakages and potential warranty issues.



Thanks. But I have read that this setup doesn't really help all that much once you get on the track and start driving the car harder.


My local track offers 2 hours lapping evenings with no run groups. During the 2 hours, you can run as much as you want. I usually attend 4-5 events per summer. However, I would normally only do 20 mins session before pitting and resting myself/car.

I will always plug my favorite oil cooler setup when I see these threads. Check out Maximal Performance's thermostatic kit. They use high quality off the self components and happily replace individual components ,say if your cooler core rusts out, instead of making you buy a full kit again. They will cut custom size lines for you, the customer service is great and the kit isn't as expensive as the rest. I have had one of their kits on my heavily tracked FRS for 10k+ track miles and it has never been an issue.

both B and K motors need oil coolers for long term health. You can run them without, but it comes at the price of significantly higher wear rates, particularly on cams and cylinder sidewalls/rings.

Check out the Jackson Racing oil cooler, which I consider the bare minimum for a tracked car. Quality components with individual replacements available.

GReddy makes a superior oil cooler, albeit at a higher price. Also quality components with individual replacements available.

Thicker oil is often a bandaid, not a solution.

+1 on Jackson Racing. Plus, it fits perfectly with the OE and TRD intakes.

You don't need an oil cooler.
Run 5w30 in the when doing track events. Switch back to 0w20 for winter months.

However in this case thicker oil than 0w20 is recommended by the manufacturer for this kind of usage...

Bah. We run 300+ degrees oil temp in the b series champ car race after race after race.

Not that I suggest it but I am far more OK running a b series VTEC motor that way than an FA20 ;)