What to do with oil cooling?

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Very interesting, thanks for doing it and posting the results. I think you have given others a lot of information that was not available before. Guessing is not always knowing.

Since I run a completely different setup (a glass buggy and off-road and in the sand) and the rear of the car is much less crowded tightly packed, no trunk cover so the air outlet is very open plus the engines shroud is not there on the bottom... it was interesting to see what the "tufts" did and the "tuft's" end facing the cooler. As Pile said: ducting/directing the air to the cooler is probably a good idea to keep any swirling out of the equation giving a cleaner approach.

I always have been curious to just what the effect a pan did to the airflow under the car. Very good!

Lee

[andy198712]

your cooler looks about the same size as mine if only a tad smaller, maybe look at cooler efficiency?
ducting wouldn't go a miss as has been said which will help when moving, can the engine draw in enough cooling air with your decklid on the ghia closed?

[grelland]

#1 rule of airflow through cooler cores etc:
If it can go around easier than going through, it will (mostly) go around.

The #2 rule is you gotta keep 'em separated (hot/cold side air) when using a fan.
Just like the big engine cooling fan, it it can re-circulate hot used cooling air, it will.

That needs some ductwork and/or a 12v Muffin fan.

The T4 "fan idle booster" blowers move a lot of air as well, saw someone use one ducted over a T4 oil cooler recently with reported great results. These push decent pressure as well, much better than an axial fan.

Thanks, very helpful

I have not had a chance to do much the last few days, but I will test the ducted route.

Also, I seem to remember from when I built the engine in the first place, someone tipped me about a adapter that allows the use of a t-4 cooler in the doghouse. Anyone know about this? I was thinking maybe have this as a primary cooler; then an external one as "backup" for extra cooling capacity when needed.

[Piledriver]

Even a T1 cooler in the doghouse will probably work.
The "adapter" is the same one you would normally bolt to a T1 block at the oil cooler ports.
Just bolt it to the cooler, instead. I suggest installing the cooler upside down tho DTM style.
I suspect that since the airflow is the same either way, the cooling improvement from a T4 cooler may not be worth the hassle of the extra sheetmetal work.(BTDT on a T4 conversion, only good justification was I HAD spare T4 coolers...)

Has to go on a thermostat too, the wbx lacks the pressure based cooler logic/plumbing of a T1 for better or worse.

Put the external cooler on a fan (if you need to install it at all.)

[grelland]

Thanks, piledriver.

Like this you mean?

21527.jpg

[sideshow]

That is the kind, oddly the seal that fits best is a rarely used type-3 slightly taller than the normal dual port beetle oil cooler seal.

I would also use the cooler that fits the shroud with the least amount of effort, having done the over sized conversion once. Bigger cooler there seems to do no harm.

[buildabiggerboxer]

That Pile said it right. you must use ducting for a cooler, the air will go around it even if gets near the thing, it needs an exit duct also.
i used huge oil coolers on the torsion tube for Cup racers with no fans or engine mounted cooler, our regs fixed the location behind the rear axle line in an effort to control costs, but theres only one proper place for oil coolers and its up front.

[grelland]

Sorry for not updating this, but after numerous test where I tried to relocate and add fans, I never got the temperature under control, so I decided to add a T1-cooler in a doghouse fan shroud. This is always connected via the sandwich plate, and a couple of hoses going through the engine bay. I made an adapter plate with a pair od AN-couplings.

Here is a picture from the trial mount:

prøvemont viftehus med doghouse.jpg

Then I added an external thermostat that sends the oil out to the external cooler when needed.

termostat og kjøler under.jpg

This fixed the issue, and I now have stable, low oil temps and decent pressure when hot.

[grelland]

I even manged to attend a lokal burger-getogether last week

vestfold.jpg

[pocketrocket]

I have a number of oxy engines running right now. ALL have the stock dog house oil cooler, all cool within the range of a stock bug air cooled engine. Without the stock oil cooler I think the engine will always run hot. The stock OE fan housing works fine. I have a bus with a bigger engine we added a oil cooler under the bus with a thermo that kicks the fan on at 190 Degrees, That van runs very cool at 70 mph, With out the stock cooler in place I don't think you are going to see normal temps going down the road.

[Piledriver]

He has a T1 cooler in the fan housing, AND the external, both fed from the thermostat.
Should be a good setup.

[grelland]

Yup, Piledriver is right. NOW I have both the stock dog house and and external cooler. And it works great