Because I do a lot of track days, I put an extra oil cooler with a build in thermostat on my Integra typeR with B18c6.
But now my oil pressure is dropped from 75psi to 60psi.
Because of the flow resistance of the cooler the oil pressure drops. The pressure right after the pump will be still 75psi, but after the cooler there is just about 60psi left.
A better or bigger oil pump won't help this.
A bigger oil pump will still deliver 75 psi right after the pump, so the pressure drop after the cooler will still be 15psi!
To get the same pressure after the cooler I have to screw up the pressure on the oil pump to 'lets say' 90 psi. only then I will get the old 75 psi after the cooler!

My question: will the lower oil pressure harm my engine?

 

What kind of oil cooler did you get? A good one like a Mocal should only drop you a few psi. I would not be comfortable with a 15psi drop.

 

might wanna get rid of the thermostat, alllow for a longer warmup.

What is your oil capacity now?

6-6.5 quarts?

What cooler are you using????

 

Something is wrong! You shouldn't have any pressure drop from an oil cooler.MAybe 1 or 2 psi, but not enough that you can read it on a regular guage. You need to look for some kind of blockage. I don't know how your thrmostate works, but it shouldn't be done in a way that will effect pressure. It should only adjust the flow through the cooler, not the total amont of flow. MAke sure you oil lines and fitting are big enough. None of the lines or fittings should be smaller than #8, but I personally wouldn't go smaller than #10.
This is a problem which should be addressed, it will hurt your engine.

 

Walt,

Any thought from experience about the in-line oil thermostats? Since my race engine is dropping compression by class rules to 10:1, I am less concerned about the need for an oil cooler. I have yet to install the cooler, in-line filter, and Accusump but was hung up on whether or not to use such a thermostat. This is a race only car and not street run.

 

The only racecar that I've worked on that had a thermostat was a 914. It ran a big oil tank and a Accusump. I think the total oil volume was like 4 gallons. We would struggle to get the oil up to 100 deg. before we could even crank it. Oil temp was very critical to the engine builder. With a CRX, I don't think you will have the same problems, I'm not sure I would worry with it. Water will control your engines temp for the most part, and I would guess that the oil volume would not be so great that the engine will have a problem getting it to a reasonable temp quickly. I would run synthetic and not worry about a thermostat failure.