Quote:
Originally Posted by nico_rsx
A20 or W20: Air to oil or Water to oil
I'm not sure why you are saying water-oil are worthless except for stabilizing temp. There are one or 2 threads on the Subaru (forester) oil cooler, and people seem to be happy with it, and IIRC it lower temp even on the track. The OEM water radiator has enough capacity to accomodate the increase in heat from the water/oil cooler on a stock NA car. Forced induction it's another ball game.
|
'Worthless' was a bit extreme. I'll say 'inadequate' instead. When I was searching for a solution, I read the same Forester threads. I was disappointed when I saw the logs.
This is not an issue with the power shed by the engine cooling system. I agree that it was designed beautifully. There's just not enough power going through the oil cooler. It wasn't designed that way.
Compare the temps recorded in those threads to the corresponding pressures recorded in the oil-pressure-versus-temp threads.
IMO, for maximum efficiency when used primarily as a daily, taking into consideration the cost of oil changes, an adequately-sized A2O easily beats the Forester cooler.