Front Mounted Oil Cooler, Where best to rout lines... Options

[jhadler]

Hey all,

Well, after an immensly successfull National Club Trials weekend (No, I didn't drive. I was the Chief Steward), I -GOTTA- get my car back together and on the track again. So... I've decided to take the hit of the additional weight and put an oil cooler where it belongs... in front.

With that in mind, here's my questions and limitations...

1) In my class, I cannot cut sheet metal, so I plan on mounting the cooler below and slightly ahead of the bumper, with the spoiler cutout to allow venting. I can't cut into the sheet metal to vent into and through the truck.

2) I have an old RX-7 oil cooler (long and low) that was previously modified (T-stat removed). Sufficient? Or possible headache? The other cooler (25 row Mocal) I have was going to go in the engine bay when I was trying despoerately to shave weight wherever I could. The weight game is going to have to wait though. I GOTTA drive that car again soon!!

3) Where to route oil lines? I will be running a header (another Q on that in my next post), so no heat. Is it good to run the lines through the heater tubes? If so, where to go once they get up front? If not, where to go and how? I will be running this car in autox and TT, and some of the local tracks (Mead) aren't friendly to cars with low clearance, so I would probably prefer to keep from mounting the lines on the bottom of the car.

4) And then, lines? Hard lines? Braided SS? Rubber?

5) T-Stat suggestions or cautions? I -have- a Mocal sandwich plate with the built-in T-Stat. If that's not going to be a serious headache, great. But if anyone has a compelling reason for dumping it in favor of something else, please let me know.

6) Oh yeah, I don't have a massive budget. So I gotta try and keep things under control...

Thanks!!

-Josh2