Show me your front oil cooler..., ...running through the fog light grills Options

[GTeener]

Thanks for the help guys. I talked to Tony more about his recommendation last night. His reasoning for the design proposal is that it is streetable, doesn't sacrifice my full spare tire in the front trunk, involves the least cutting up of the car and protects the coolers the best.

BUT He says he hasn't done an ail cooler setup on a 914 for almost 10 years (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) so maybe he doesn't know that the space under the headlights is too small for an oil cooler (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) he couldn't give me a price quote either, because he hasn't done it in a while.

A co-worker who is also an ex-Porsche mechanic suggested mounting an oil cooler and fan in the back close to the oil tank under the trunk protected by the rear suspension. He says it would be a short plumbing job that will provide adequate cooling (not as efficient as fresh air), not blow hot air into the engine, and require the least holes in the car. Says he did something similar to his VW bus. Anyone done or seen this done?

Wes Hildreth in Dallas sells a kit that installs underneath the rear trunk as you indicated. It requires an electrical fan that is switched on-off manually from within the cockpit. I didn´t like the switching on-off part...the reason I am going inside the rear fender. This setup also uses short oil lines.

Seems inside the fender wells wouldn't protect the oil cooler from getting damaged (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) I saw that the MOCAL kits for the 911s mount them in the front fender wells. Anything that gets picked up by the tires and flinged around the weel wells seems to be a threat to an oil cooler in there.

911 kits install in the front fender well....I am talking rear fender well using the Mocal 914 cooler kit. The cooler in this area would have to be installed sideways so the fins are not exposed to debriss. Besides, it is some distance in front of the rear passenger wheel.

Ricky,
I'm still skeptical about the exposure inside any wheel well next to a spinning tire.

[lapuwali]

I believe Rich Johnson has an under trunk cooler with a fan, as well. One could easily switch the fan with a temperature sensitive switch, rather than manually. These switches are commonly available for use with watercooled engines, but can be used with oil just as easily. Most are also adjustable so you can change the temps they use to switch it on or off.

[lapuwali]

Ricky,
I'm still skeptical about the exposure inside any wheel well next to a spinning tire.

Placing it in front of the tire (as I believe was suggested) means it's unlikely anything will be thrown off the tire into the cooler. Behind the tire, then, yes, you'd have to shield the cooler somehow. The 911S put a cooler behind a front tire for several years.

[BKLA]

Mid '70s 911's had brass tube oil coolers (coiled and multi tube - depending on the function and model) in the right front wheel well. They were more like heat sinks, not radiator types, and were much less susceptible to flying debris.

[GTeener]

Ricky,
I'm still skeptical about the exposure inside any wheel well next to a spinning tire.

Placing it in front of the tire (as I believe was suggested) means it's unlikely anything will be thrown off the tire into the cooler. Behind the tire, then, yes, you'd have to shield the cooler somehow. The 911S put a cooler behind a front tire for several years.

And they stopped putting a cooler behind the front tire because????

[Brando]

the "911" became water cooled (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Basically their oil coolers a big coolant->oil heat exchanger.

[jhadler]

James, I would think you would be well aware of the pummeling the inside of a wheel well takes when the car is shod with sticky race tires. No surface inside the wheel well is safe from gravel and debris being tossed up by the tires.

The gap on the passenger side inner fender well is a nice size, but there is very little air flow in there, it's pretty stagnant. Unless you cut a hole and add a duct, you're just gonna have a pocket of hot air in there, it won't make the oil cooler very efficient.

Mounting the oil cooler to the engine lid (minus the drip tray) is okay, better with a fan attached. But still has the problem of drawing low pressure air and venting that hot air into the engine bay.

There have been a number of installs in the rear under the trunck. Not bad, as long as it has a fan. But you're trying to cool that oil cooler with 125 degree temperature air. You're right next to the heat exchangers, the transmission and swimming in the heted air coming off the engine.

Up front is where the cooling is at. Even a tube-n-fin oil cooler up front (in the cooler, high pressure air) will be more effective than a mocal oil cooler wedged into the passenger wheel well.

Brant's setup is a work of art, In my opinion, it doesn't get much better than that. Then again, it's a lot of work and money to make something like that. I'm working on making a front oil cooler setup that works without cutting any sheet metal (not allowed in my class). I thought about the fog light grilles, but there's just no where for the the heated air to exit that area.

-Josh2

Ricky,
I'm still skeptical about the exposure inside any wheel well next to a spinning tire.

Placing it in front of the tire (as I believe was suggested) means it's unlikely anything will be thrown off the tire into the cooler. Behind the tire, then, yes, you'd have to shield the cooler somehow. The 911S put a cooler behind a front tire for several years.

[Aaron Cox]

simple:

efficiency has some to do with SIZE of the cooler, but MOSTLY airflow.

do it once. do it upfront. never touch it again (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[rickyhgarcia]

I believe Rich Johnson has an under trunk cooler with a fan, as well. One could easily switch the fan with a temperature sensitive switch, rather than manually. These switches are commonly available for use with watercooled engines, but can be used with oil just as easily. Most are also adjustable so you can change the temps they use to switch it on or off.

Rich´s cooler is a Wes Hildreth unit....

[rktmn247]

Take a look at eastcoaster's thread. His cooler install is very very nice!

[jhadler]

do it once. do it upfront. never touch it again (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yup, "Buy cheap, buy twice..."

Do it right the first time. Learn from other people's experience, it's cheaper...

-Josh2

[Aaron Cox]

do it once. do it upfront. never touch it again (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yup, "Buy cheap, buy twice..."

Do it right the first time. Learn from other people's experience, it's cheaper...

-Josh2

yupperz.....

and you can always block off part of the cooler if it is too cool, but you cant magically get more cooling from a cooler that is too small for the job.

engineer a little bit of expansion capabillity

[lapuwali]

I'm not arguing more effective or less effective. I'm arguing effective enough. I'm also arguing trading off factors other than optimal cooling, like not wanting to run lines all the way to the front and back, taking up front trunk space, cutting vent holes, etc. Maximum thermal efficiency is not the be-all end-all solution.

Gwen's car uses a 2.2, which may or may not be in S tune (there's some doubt about that). It's primarily a street car. If she ran a front-mounted Mocal with full venting, my bet is her thermostat would be closed most of the time.

In my own case, I intend to try running my 2.7 with no external cooler at all. I'll be using an aluminum oil tank, so I'm hoping for some additional heat loss there. If I do end up needing an external cooler, I'll most likely try a simple cooler in the engine bay first, or even the along-the-long-trombone idea. Perhaps some louvers on the rocker valence for better airflow. I think the idea has considerable merit.

[GTeener]

Granted I don't typically drive at altitude like at WCC, but I typically register 220 and at WCC I was a steaming 260 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

I'd like to go to RRC (UT) and next year the SWC (NM). I have been known to autocross and occaisonally do a track-day, but ya, it's mostly a street car. So I'd prefer not to sacrifice my spare tire and headlights....

Oh ya... I did get confirmation that my engine is a properly tuned 2.2S. I just don't have the S distributor or shroud.

I do like the open-mouthed GT look though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

[GTeener]

[gulp] What should this modification cost? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

[lapuwali]

I don't think there are any off-the-shelf kits to do what you want, except maybe for the Wes (mumble) kit mentioned above. Rich Johnson can probably quote you a price on that.

The parts alone will be in the $300-400 range. No telling on how much labor would be involved.

[Aaron Cox]

the labor isnt "That bad". drill some holes, make some openings, buy a shroud

30 feet of -12 braided line at around 9 bucks a foot. (or you can go with the cheaper fittings and socketless hose)
GT shroud FG parts.... 100?
various fittings 100
mocal thermostat 100
Setrab/Mocal/Fluidyne/Mazda rx7 cooler - 50-400

[GTeener]

Setrab/Mocal/Fluidyne/Mazda RX7 cooler

Is the quality of all these coolers equal?

I've been told offline only use MOCAL or Fluidyne and then by someone else that the Mazda RX7 cooler was definitely the way to go (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

[Trekkor]

Fun thread!

If you want to know if a spare tire will fit up front with a set-up like mine, try to set the tire on top of the spare cover instead of underneath.

I actually block some of the inlet holes in cold weather.
In 111 degree temps at TH after 25 minutes of *FLOGGING*, the temps creep up to 230-235. WhoooWaaa!!

30 feet of line will definatly do the job, but it's more like 24-26.
Fittings are $20-50 each
My BIG Setrab cooler lists at $440
Mocal t-Stat is $125ish.

It'll be close to a grandsky when you are all said and done.
If it's cheaper, hooray!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mueba.gif)

Any car that sees serious track duty, *WILL* need a cooler. Period.



KT

[GeorgeRud]

The finned lines were used along the passenger side rocker panel by Riccardo Gonzales in Indiana, and they seemed to work well for him.

My 2.7 is cooled by a turbotrol cooler (Lenke Design) laid flat over an opening in the front trunk floor, with ducting bringing air from the front GT style bumper.

Back in the 70's, Porsche used the lines up the passenger side to the front hoop and back again. Basically, the front hoop was just a fancy U shaped detour to the back of the car. They figured that with the 55MPH speed limit, we didn't need any more cooling. No wonder the 2.7s had so many problems with heat!

I agree that there's no need to reengineer the system, the front coolers work very well as long as there is an outlet for the hot air! The lines are not that hard to run up there.