MAPerformance FR-S/BRZ Oil Cooler Track Review

[crazyfrenchbiker]

MAPerformance FR-S/BRZ Oil Cooler Track Review
Main Car Setup / Heat Producers

• FA20Club Stage 1.5 Turbo Kit
• Garrett GTX3076R
• Deatschwerks 260C
• Injector Dynamics 1000CC Injectors
• Mishimoto Radiator
• Stock Radiator Fans
• HRI Tuning 91 Octane engine tune - 7 PSI
• Amsoil Dominator 10W-30 Synthetic Oil
• VIS AMS Vented Hood
• 277HP on Mustang Dyno (~310HP on Dynojet)

Introduction
I have been in the market lately for an oil cooler, as my oil temps were approaching some scary levels. On the street without an oil cooler I was seeing temperatures around 230F after a few spirited runs. On the track, this would approach close to 250F before I would need to run some cool down laps.
I contacted MAPerformance and together we thought their kit would be a good fit for my car. Once I placed my order online, I arrived my kit within 2 days. I would like to add that MAPerformance has very helpful with any questions I've had throughout the entire process. A lot of times you aren't buying a product just for the product, you're buying it for the support behind the product. I can confidently say that MAPerformance stands behind anything they sell.

The Kit
The kit contains a Mocal Thermostatic sandwich plate and spacer, a Mocal 13 row core, nylon braded -10 AN lines, 2 45 deg Fittings, 2 90 deg Fittings and some mounting hardware.
Overall, the quality of the product is great, and priced very reasonably. You are required to assemble the AN lines and fittings, but since these are nylon braided lines, the task is simple.

Installation
I considered the installation to be simple and the guide to be thorough. In essence, you simply remove the bumper, lower tray, drill a few holes, turn a wrench and put it back together. The hardest part is lining the bumper up properly for reinstallation.
A few things to note. Due to the fact that my car is turbocharged, I tried and failed to use the recommended mounting locations. I decided to use a couple radiator fan zip ties, found at your local auto parts store to mount it directly to my intercooler. Also due to the position of the intake pipe for the larger turbo, I was required to flip the fittings around on my oil lines, so the 45s are on the core, and the 90s on the thermostat.
You'll notice I took my car apart a bit further then is required, but that is because I had a few other tasks to tackle during the same weekend.


Pre-Oil Cooler Kit Track Day
I decided it would be a good idea to perform a benchmark test. I took the car to the Nebraska Region SCCA test and tune. The ambient temperate was around 70F. After a few hot laps, I noted the oil temperature to be at 220F. A few more subsequent hot laps and the temps raised to about 240F. This was getting a bit too hot for comfort, and I decided to let the car cool down for a bit. In the afternoon I decided to really push the car and as a peak, the oil temp hit 250F.

Initial Testing
During our initial testing, I thought it was odd that oil was flowing through the cooler during startup, but after speaking to MAPerformance, they were able to explain that this is occurring by design. The thermostat is not completely closed while it reaches temp. It is partially opened to allow some oil to flow through the core and head up the oil which is sitting in the core. This prevents oil from being pushed into the motor which would be at a substantially lower temp then the engine when the thermostat finally opens.
We checked the car over for leaks, once we determined everything looked good, we were off to perform some street testing.

Street Testing
During our street testing, I found that the car did take a bit longer than normal to warm up. This is expected since some oil is flowing through the core and being cooled down. Once the car was up to temp, we did some spirited driving and found it very difficult to get the temps over 200F.
During daily driving, this cooler work great, my oil temps stick to 160F-175F. I couldn’t be happier with this for my daily driver.


Track Day 1
I took the cooler out for some initial testing at the Nebraska Region SCCA test and tune. This proved to be a great test. From our morning sessions, the oil temp never rose over 220F, likely due to being able to sit for about 30 seconds between laps, and with the slightly cooler ambient temperature of 65F.
In the afternoon, the ambient temperature rose to 75F. Due to the number of cars that had gotten their fair share of testing in the morning, a number of people decided to run less frequently in the afternoon. This made it very easy to run a large number of hot laps and really get a good test on the cooler. After about 10 60 second laps, I did not see the temperatures climb much higher than 238F. Compared to the benchmark, this was definitely a lot more runs then what we had seen, I fear that without a cooler, I would have seen temps around 260F. I am happy with the cooler, but I am wondering if I should consider something with a 19 or 25 row core that would be better suited for a track setup.





Next Steps
I will be taking to the Mustang track weekend at RPM in Iowa. I am looking forward to this event as I feel I should be able to get a better idea if a larger core would be beneficial with this kit for the true track enthusiast. I’ll be working with MAPerformance if a large core will be required and perform a bit more testing.

[MAPerformance]

Thanks for the business and the review! We can work on getting you a larger core to see how that works on the track