The oil system in the CRX is almost finished, and the lines are ready to be connected to a remote oil cooler that I haven't purchased yet. Additionally, I need to replace my OEM radiator with a fresh one, since my current radiator has 160K miles of untold abuse and a broken mount. The thought of buying a OEM style radiator with an integrated AT cooler built into it is pretty nice, because it would save me a ton of money and effort. However, I figured I would post this question to see if there are any huge drawbacks to running such a setup vs. a stand along oil cooler mounted in front of the radiator.

Keep in mind that this is a road racing setup only, so there's no stop 'n go traffic expected (unless I'm stuck behind those damn Spec7s ).

Thanks for any info!

 

cannot be done, do a search and some research.

You think a tiny 5/16" line gonna flow enough oil to keep a motor well lube?????

Maybe if it was 5/8" which fast atleast 6 times the flow capacity.

 

Is it a good idea to put an oil cooler down low in front of your radiator? I'm thinking one small rock or piece of road debris hits in the wrong spot, and boom - there goes all your oil and the motor...

It's funny that this subject came up because I just saw a beautiful replica Cobra this weekend at an autoX with a big oil cooler mounted below the radiator about 3" off the gound. I was thinking to my self that that seemed like a not-so-great idea to me to have it mounted there... Even though it looked really cool.

Disclaimer: I have no experience whatsoever with oil coolers. Just looking at this from a common sense point of view...

Andrew

 

Oil coolers are pretty Beefy... thick hard metal
they are not like radiators..
in fact...they will probably PROTECT your radiator

 

 

I would go with the stand alone oil cooler. You will get greater flow and cooling capacity our of a remote cooler.

 

Mr. ITR#231,

Even though I did purchase this radiator, after reading Mista Bone's comment, the lines are quite small and may not be large enough to flow enough oil to do any good. I haven't looked at the lines recently, but 5/16" is probably correct, so keep this in mind when doing your calculations.

BTW, you can check them out if you make it to the June 22nd NASA event.

 

Heh, you're partially the reason I asked. I figured if it works for you, it'll work for me. 5/16" line? Apparently it won't work for either of us

Thanks for the info, guys. If I had known the passage was so small, I never would have asked.

As for mounting the cooler low in front of the radiator, I think it's safe there. I wouldn't put it 3" off the ground, though. That's just asking for trouble.

 

i've got my oil cooler mounted right in front of my radiator and it's held up so far. helps in cooling my turbo!!

 

Thanks for asking this question now, I probably would have asked when the time came to start up the project. I never really put much thought into it after I bought the radiator, but thinking about it during the day, those lines are quite small and would be a big bottle neck to the system. At least now I won't waste any time fooling around with it. I didn't know how big the fittings were when I bought it, I only saw a diagram of the radiator with the integrated AT cooler and thought it might be worth trying. No harm, no foul, just the loss of cost difference when I bought it.

Now get back to the books!

 

Fine...