sandwich oil cooler adapter and oil cooler questions Options

[type47]

After track sessions this past weekend, oil temps as indicated by a dipstick thermometer (Mainely Custom item) indicated temps of about 252 F after 20 minute sessions (ambient temps in the 60's). The engine is a Euro D-Jet with 20-50 Brad Penn. The engine that was in the car when I bought it (not the same engine as in the car now) has a sandwich oil cooler adapter and the oil cooler is still mounted on the car and I think I will hook it up again. Two questions; first is the indentification of the outlet and inlet on the adapter; which is which or how do I figure out which one the oil should exit from and which should the oil return. Second, on a radiator style oil cooler, do you hook it up so that oil goes in the "top" and filters/goes down the coils and exits out the bottom connection or goes in the bottom and pressure feeds up the cooler and exits out the top to return? TIA

[tomeric914]

That ball, cup and spring are the oil filter bypass. The oil was likely bypassing the cooler and the filter and going back to the engine.

I removed my spring, punched out an aluminum plug a thousandth or two larger than the hole, pressed in the plug and peened over the edge of the hole in a couple of spots.

It's in a thread I contributed to on oil coolers. Search and ye shall find.

[ChrisFoley]

I removed my spring, punched out an aluminum plug a thousandth or two larger than the hole, pressed in the plug and peened over the edge of the hole in a couple of spots.

I used to think that blocking off the bypass was a good idea...
until we tore down an engine that ate a set of lifters. The wear metal clogged the filter and collapsed the element because there was no bypass. The bearings were getting starved and catastrophic failure was only narrowly avoided.

I'm planning to look into a heavier spring for the bypass instead of blocking it off, since I think the stock one only needs a few psi of backpressure before it opens.