Quote:
Originally Posted by NoHaveMSG
I think you would be surprised, it sheds quite a bit of heat. If I didn't just kill one of my thermocouples I'd test it on my NA car. Though to test it properly I would need to build a duct off the back of the oil cooler to prevent ambient air from mixing with it to get a better reading.
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I think it is worth noting that at 65mph the car is traveling at 1144 inches per second, which is how fast the air is traveling through a heat exchanger. Meaning, each molecule of air has 0.00087 seconds per inch to transfer heat from the core to itself. For a two inch oil cooler, that is 0.0017 seconds of time to pick up as much heat as it can.
I think everyone has waved their hand through a candle or fire, or I'm sure anyone can wave their hand at different speeds through a hairdryer and experience the drop in heat exchange felt as the speed of their hand through the hot air increases. Do this experiment in front of a yardstick for speed calculations. Aim for going from one end to the other end of the yardstick in 6 seconds and then 3 seconds, which is 0.5 and 1 foot per second, respectively. Now try for 1 second, which is 3 feet per second or 2mph. Now go as fast as possible. Your hand probably won't get to the speed of a pitcher's throw, but say your hand got up to 65mph for the sake of the example, did you even feel much difference in air temperature? You felt the airstream, but was the temperature exchange perceptible?
The point: the dirty air leaving the oil cooler is perhaps not much warmer than the air entering the intercooler, so perhaps an oil cooler that is covering a quarter of the frontal area of an intercooler is not killing the performance of the intercooler.