I need an awesome oil cooler for my SBF

The V8-swapped E36 continues to progress. The crankcase venting problem is apparently resolved.

Oil temp is up next. During two days of open practice in 80 degree weather last week, I ran the motor flat out. I was getting the temps at the oil pan up to 240 within 5 minutes, 260 5 minutes later, and then cruising at 270 for pretty much however long I ran the car. I run synth 0-40 and change it every other day.

Oil pan is stock steel Foxbody Mustang style. It's located high enough that it's in the draft of the radiator/fan shroud. I don't think I can improve that airflow.

I might be able to squeeze a smallish cooler up where the right headlight goes but I would rather keep the light. Only other place that comes to mind is in front of the radiator/pusher fan. Is there something that still has decent air through-flow to the radiator?

This doesn't necessarily need to be a budget approach, but I don't want the oil cooler to cost more than the T5 transmission.

If you've got enough cooling capacity, you could go with an oil / water heat exchanger. Might be easier to package and it also saves the need for an oil cooler thermostat (coolant should be 180+ so it'll keep the oil from getting too cold).

Ideally, use the heater circuit for a coolant feed for the heat exchanger (constant flow even with the t-stat closed).

Wow, I had never heard about those.

I'm not 100% sure where my coolant capacity is. It's a new street rod radiator with a 19# pressure cap. I run straight water, but I have some Amsoil I have been meaning to add.

I took the dash gauge temp sensor out of the intake of the BMW motor, and put it in the intake of the Ford. It works, but it's buffered. A couple of times I have managed to boil the radiator over, and the gauge needle has stayed right at nominal.

I have a Bosch analog gauge and sensor that I will wire in place of that setup soon.

How hot was the dash gauge showing when it boiled? Also, is the radiator downflow or crossflow? Downflow rads will blow coolant out of the cap easily because the cap is on the high pressure side rather than the low pressure side.

Also, are you running an overflow tank? If not, I'd add one, as burping a little coolant is normal unless you leave air space in the rad.

Ford trucks/vans came with some nice oil to water coolers that go under the oil filter if you have the room for it.

rslifkin wrote: How hot was the dash gauge showing when it boiled? Also, is the radiator downflow or crossflow? Downflow rads will blow coolant out of the cap easily because the cap is on the high pressure side rather than the low pressure side. Also, are you running an overflow tank? If not, I'd add one, as burping a little coolant is normal unless you leave air space in the rad.

Thanks. It's a cross-flow. A new Jegs 2-row w/1-inch core, in 26x19. I was wrong about the cap. It's 16# not 19#. I have a puke tank on it. How much headspace is it normal to leave? I'm used to closed systems.

The stupid dash gauge is buffered (and designed for a closed system) so it sits right at nominal, all the way to boil-over.

RXBeetle wrote: Ford trucks/vans came with some nice oil to water coolers that go under the oil filter if you have the room for it.

Are those the things that look like a sandwich adapter plate, but they're thicker with two nipples on them? I can't fit that in. I'm already using a half-height filter and a 90-degree adapter.

In reply to JBasham:

With a puke tank on it, you should be able to run the rad 100% full. It'll puke out any excess to the tank and if the tank is plumbed right, it'll pull it back when it cools down (so you'll want some coolant in the puke tank even when cold so it doesn't pull air back into the rad).

And yeah, those sandwich adapters are the cooler thingies. There are also ones (Mocal / Laminova makes some) that are external ones you plumb oil and coolant to.

JBasham wrote:

RXBeetle wrote: Ford trucks/vans came with some nice oil to water coolers that go under the oil filter if you have the room for it.

Are those the things that look like a sandwich adapter plate, but they're thicker with two nipples on them? I can't fit that in. I'm already using a half-height filter and a 90-degree adapter.

When I put the supercharger on my Focus the kit came with parts to remote the oil filter. It moved the filter from the back of the engine to on the frame to the side and in front of the engine.

Just getting the filter out in the airflow reduced oil temps by ~10°.

Good thought, thanks. My filter currently hovers behind the radiator, about 2" above a 2.5" header collector.

JBasham wrote: Good thought, thanks. My filter currently hovers behind the radiator, about 2" above a 2.5" header collector.

Moving that will almost certainly help. I've got a similar filter to header proximity on the Jeep at the moment, and even with ceramic coated headers, I've had the labels get cooked off of filters

The oil/water heat exchanger style coolers do work, but they aren't nearly as good as an oil/air heat exchanger. Remember that they only get to use the temperature delta between the oil and coolant, so if your oil is at 250, it's only ~30-40 degrees hotter than the coolant. This is a problem with the Focus ST, since it only has an oil/water cooler, and can get the oil quite toasty on a track without an aftermarket oil/air.

This is the cooler I have on my Volvo:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/DER-51608

It isn't the cheapest thing in the world, but it isn't junk, and it seems to do the job. There are a million different sizes of similar coolers, but that's the one I have. It would be an easy part to add to a remote-mount oil filter kit (engine -> filter -> cooler -> engine).

If it is a street-driven car the second gen Mazda rx7 (fc) has a great long, thin thermostatically controlled air-oil cooler with fittings on the same side.

For a track-only car the thermostat isn't as impt unless it is really cold and even then I'd imagine you still would keep the temps over the thermostat's rating

In reply to mck1117:

That's true, but given a good size oil/water cooler, it should keep things cool enough (the heat transfer is more efficient than oil/air).

Realistically, especially with synthetic, oil temps of 230 - 240 are perfectly fine if it builds enough pressure. If it's not hitting 250+ without the cooler, it doesn't need one IMO.

In reply to jfryjfry:

A t-stat still matters for a track setup IMO as you won't be able to warm the car up properly without a lot of load on it without one. Oil should never be colder than 190 - 200 once things are warmed up. IMO, run a 200 or 215 oil t-stat, not the typical 180 degree ones everyone sells.

I'd run this cooler from B&M it same made in Canada as many other brands for less $$ i'd combine it with a remote filter kit but buy kit without hoses go get hydraulic hoses made and you'll never loose sleep over a burst hose.
cooler 1/2 npt kit (toss hoses)

rslifkin wrote: In reply to jfryjfry: A t-stat still matters for a track setup IMO as you won't be able to warm the car up properly without a lot of load on it without one. Oil should never be colder than 190 - 200 once things are warmed up. IMO, run a 200 or 215 oil t-stat, not the typical 180 degree ones everyone sells.

Shhhh don't tell my car that I can't warm It up right. It loves the cooler without the tstat.

(Which is why I added the qualifier about it working ok for a track car) :)

Thanks for posting those plate cooler links. That's actually the way I'm leaning now, in about that size. There is a Setrab that's a touch larger, and 50% more expensive. But I'm inclined to pay up for it because they publish a pressure drop specification for it (3 PSI) and a decent BTU transfer rate.

There is enough room behind the grill and in front of the pusher fan on my radiator. I will just have to try it and see if I compromise the engine coolant heat control.

Isn't this fun ? Derale scoop cooler This would actually fit, I think, in the location for one of the fog lights, low on an E36 bumper. But nobody has posted a BTU estimate for it, and I don't feel like being the guinea pig this time up.

rslifkin wrote: A t-stat still matters for a track setup IMO as you won't be able to warm the car up properly without a lot of load on it without one. Oil should never be colder than 190 - 200 once things are warmed up. IMO, run a 200 or 215 oil t-stat, not the typical 180 degree ones everyone sells.

I would say 200 is ideal. 180deg is OK for a track-only car but could cause overcooling when cruising. 215 is needlessly high.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

215 is higher than it needs to be, but nowhere near too hot. Unless you've got a lot of cooler the oil temps will likely climb above thermostat temp anyway.

I have always had full instrumentation for oil pan temps in the cars I track, and I am accustomed to keeping an eye on the gauge. I get my oil up to temp first, as a matter of habit. I put a thermostat in the cooler I added to the '79 3 series, and it hasn't really made much of a difference either way.

I think I will skip the thermostat, at least for the first draft. If I find out it's taking longer than I want to get the oil up to good lapping speed temps, I will go back and plumb in a T-stat, and pick an opening temp based on how fast the car heats oil with the cooler in the loop.

If I was driving the car around town a couple days a week, I would put one in for sure. I live in a high-traffic area and I want to get up to temp as fast as possible.

Use sweeper hose fittings on any oil lines the "hard" 90's reisrict flow.

^Also it's a good idea to shim the oil pump's pressure control valve to increase pressure by 10~20psi whenever you're running an aftermarket oil cooler, there will always be some pressure drop. Never use a "hard" angle fitting, and don't use a tighter angled fitting than you need.

One of the best OEM Ford oil to water coolers is found on 5.0L Explorers. It uses a special lower radiator hose to route the water to the oil cooler but it flows more water. The cooler that came on the 2.3L Ford Turbo engines was popular as well. It used 5/8's hose fittings to route water to the cooler, it's a better street cooler, where the Explorer cooler is a better track cooler.

Your thread really caught my eye as I'm in the middle if putting a SBF in the MGA and never considered an oil cooler. The Mustang that it came out of didn't have a cooler and ran well and cool and pretty much without any problems so I thought that I'd be OK—now, not so much.

Is it usual for the SBF to run hot, or is it the smaller engine compartment, lack or incoming air, or something to do with any mods that you did to the car?

Really curious about this now . . .

Already noted above, but a used 2nd gen RX7 oil cooler is quite capable. Rotary engines are half oil cooled after all.