I'm trying to nail down why I'm having oil cooler issues. Specifically, I've blown two sandwich plate adapter seals in the same place / manner. In addition, during my test drives I wasn't necessarily thrilled with the temp drop I was seeing.

First, I'm running the Setrab oil cooler and Setrab sandwich plate adapter. Anyone else running the Setrab sandwich plate adapter without any issues? I know I'm not the ONLY one, but how many people run this as opposed to something like the Mocal setup?

Second, when I contacted Pegasus Racing to order more seals, I spoke to the tech guy who gave me some food for thought. The most interesting thing was he said the oil cooler needs to be mounted with the inlet and outlet ports facing up, otherwise the cooler won't fill up all the way and you won't get ideal (or any) cooling.

Here's my setup with it angled somewhat down for what I hoped was good airflow: http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?s=&...t&p=2826235

Essentially he says the oil takes "the path of least resistance" which could largely be from the inlet port to the outlet port using few of the cooling rows. I assumed the pressure would fill the cooler, but I can see what he's saying. Any thoughts on that? If that's the case, I really need to completely redo my mounting setup and plumbing.

you got two weeks to get this baby on the road and up to PA. Get on it

Thanks, Ralph. I'm on it (hopefully with some help here). Right now I'm losing confidence I'm going to be able to get this thing where it needs to be for a road trip...

Yes, you are trapping air in that cooler, flip it around.

In an ideal world, inlet should be at the bottom, outlet at the top, but both at the top will be good too. Initially, as the oil fills the cooler, it will push the air out. In your setup, the air has not way out, unless you had a purge bleeder at the top. Same as purging brakes lines, bleeders are on the top.

Here's my setup; those sharp elbows at the top are not the best, nice sweeping elbow would prevent pressure loss.


Click to view attachment

Rob

Not using the Setrab sandwich adapter, So I can't help with that issue. (Don't know what brand it is) I am running the Setrab oil thermostat. In that case the oil should follow the path of least resistance and bypass the oil cooler (somewhat) until it hits 180 when all the oil is sent to the cooler.

Mounted my cooler parallel to the trunk floor. that is inclined about 6 deg towards the fittings. both my fittings are on the top.

Another way, and I considered this, would be to mount the cooler with the fittings on the side. Input on the bottom and incline it slightly with the output on top.

I have been driving this thing a lot in the HOT weather we have been having and am really happy with the cooling I see on the Temp gauge.

Where before it would easily hit 250-260 in the heat, Now it rarely gets to 220 and mostly hovers between 200-215

With the fresh engine your heat will be higher, should drop down some after it breaks in some.

Hope you get it sorted out.

I don't know how many times I have had this discussion with friends running their coolers with the lines coming in from the bottom. I was easier for them to mount this way. The cooler is just less efficient this way.

Greg W.

Thanks for the input. I spend a good part of the day undoing my setup from last time (of which I was pretty proud) and then reinstalling the cooler so the inlet/outlet ports are oriented up. It was a bit of a b**** to get the lines to fit, but I got them. I had to swap out the 45 degree AN fittings for some straight connectors. The good news is I can now actually install my grommets where the lines pass through the engine tin, and there's really no change the half shaft is going to interfere with anything.

So much for my shroud and ideal air flow, but air flow doesn't help if it's passing across a largely empty oil cooler with no oil in it to cool.

Here's the current orientation. @Olympic 914 Tom, I know you're concerned about airflow with the fan shroud (as am I). I'm going to see how it works. Good news is it should be pretty easy to remove if needed.
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Here's what it looked like originally:
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I'm nervous to take it for a ride again in case the seal blows, but you gotta do it, right? Boy it makes a hell of a mess when/if it happens. I'll give it a shot tomorrow. I'm pretty beat right now.

Chris Foley mounted mine when it was up there for the long and floor pan rust repair a couple years ago, and I know they mounted it with the inlet/outlets at the top, and when I pulled motor and trans for paint , I put it back in place the same way, but it is mounted in the same location you have it.

I am curious to find out what you learn about the seal issue. I have had a leak at the location of the sandwich plate adaptor but realized it was not secured tightly and had worked loose I think when I did the oil change. I went back and pulled the filter and had to re-torque the nut holding the adaptor . what seal are you talking about, the one between the adapter and the engine/ filter mount location? sounds like its way more than the drip I had....hope you can figure it out soon , I don't know the system well enough to guess why the pressure would be that high....

Phil

[quote name='BeatNavy' date='Jul 6 2020, 05:50 PM' post='2831526']
Tom, I know you're concerned about airflow with the fan shroud (as am I). I'm going to see how it works. Good news is it should be pretty easy to remove if needed.
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Here's what it looked like originally:
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I was a TAB tech for 30 years and airflow was one of our specialties. IMO the fan shroud is going to hurt the airflow whether the fan is pushing or pulling as it will probably cause an increase in pressure resulting in a decrease in airflow and a loss of heat transfer. When I installed a cooler I had the inlet at the bottom and the outlet at the top to help avoid "trapping air". people like to think a pump will "push" the air out but if the air has to go "down hill" any significant amount it gets "trapped" instead resulting in decreased flow.

Hey guys, thanks for the interest and input. We had a brief but really intense thunderstorm not long after I posted on Monday evening, and we lost a HUGE branch off our "prized" tree out front. Plus a few Bradford Pears doing what Bradford Pears do. The last two and a half days has been cutting, limbing, loading, and hauling wood. Still not done, but I need to wait for my neighbor with his front loader. I'm absolutely beat from all that "fun."

Anyway, I took it out a few minutes ago. I got it up to temp, and it seemed to peak at around 210 (it's pretty hot out today, too). If that's where I peak, I'm ok with that. Best part is it didn't seem to leak -- I didn't leave a trail of Brad Penn 20W50 on our rural road like I did last week. I still need to take it out some more, as when I've had problems with that seal it's been on the 2nd or 3rd drive. I wonder if it had something to do with the air I was trapping in the system

I kept pulling over to the side of the road and/or turn offs to peak under the car for massive leaks, and at one point to add a bunch more oil that had been pumped into the cooler. As one car was driving by fast in the traffic I heard a guy yell out "NINE FOURTEEN!!!"

I do have another issue to address sooner or later -- oil leak at the bottom of the oil pump cover plate. I'm guessing the front seal has given away partly, or perhaps the oil pump cover itself is leaking. Not cool, and either way I'm looking at an engine drop.

Glad to read you solved the oil leaks.
Would you mind showing your hose routing? I see you are not in front of the valve covers. I have them there and it makes an issue when adjusting the valves.I would like to see yours before I do any cutting in the sheet metal

Mark

Hey Mark, hopefully I've solved the oil leaks. At least the major one at the sandwich plate adapter. Did second test drive this afternoon, and so far, so good. It may be as Rod ( @root ) told me several years ago with regard to 914's: "Three times. THREE TIMES! I have to do everything THREE TIMES before I get it right!"

I'll post pics of the hose routing once I put it back on the lift for inspection, but basically they go from the sandwich plate, up through the J-tube hole in the shelf tin, then back through holes I cut in the back tin (and grommeted) to the oil cooler. I also didn't want anything messing up access to the valves, and more than one person here suggested it, including Joe ( @Porschef ).

rc

Oh I see what you did. But going through the J-tube hole kills half of the heat from the heat exchangers. I am not sure I can live with that. I would like to see your setup just the same.
I know what you mean about the "three's". Happens to me also

Some cars only had the aux blower going into the drivers side anyways. My '73 was set up this way.

Originally I added the aux fan splitter and the extra hose to the passenger side. When I installed the oil cooler I eliminated the pass side hose. The car got plenty hot inside without it. And I thought it just cluttered up the engine compartment even more.

The engine fan shroud is always sending air down the HEs whether it is directed into the pass compartment or dumped out under the car. So you really don't loose heat to that side. its just not boosted by the aux fan.

JMHO

Exactly

Good point! I think I could live with that after all. I think the biggest looser will be windshield defogging at idle. Worth a try!

Rob, Thanks for posting your oil cooler installation threads. Good info for those of us considering an oil cooler.

Your comment above made me wonder how much additional oil you needed above the usual 4 quarts.

Another question. Does the additional oil drain back into the engine sump when the engine is shut off? Or does the oil in the cooler remain trapped in the cooler?

Thanks.

Hey Mike - interesting question. I've given it some thought, and I'm not sure there is a clear cut answer. I suppose it depends on how your oil lines are routed and what the "elevation" is of the components. In my setup I would guess that at least some of the oil drains back to the case, but mostly from what's left in the lines. Because my oil lines go up some into the engine bay (before going back down through the J-Tube hole), there's a bit of a natural trap in the cooler. I honestly don't know how much total oil I have in the system, but I'd guess it's roughly 4.5 to 5 quarts.

EDIT: While I'm at it I should point out that I've made 5 trips now bringing oil up to temp, and no blown seal so far. Gaining some confidence that I'm good at this point. Temps are ok, but still in the 215 to 220 range range. I guess I can live with that. I did remove the "shroud" for the fan I created, but it didn't seem to change things significantly one way or another.

It's good advice to have the cooler oriented with the fittings facing up to encourage proper flow through the cooler. Having the cooler under the back of the car isn't optimal unfortunately due to all the heat back there, though choice are limited if you don't want to cut up the car. Remember that for an oil cooler to do its job, it has to be able to shed heat to lower temperature air. It's hot next to the trans and just above the exhaust, so not much heat differential to work with. And limited airflow under there too. Years ago I put an external cooler on a lightly modded 2.0L. With it mounted in back, I was hitting 275 degrees oil temp at trackdays. Moved the same cooler up front with a hole in the bumper to get air to it, and it dropped to 250.

Very true, it's all about the heat transfer. I've thought about trying to take ambient temp reading around the cooler (above the heat exchangers) to get some idea of the differential. I may find that in my case, at least, that there is minimal actual difference with a rear mounted cooler. The alternative, as you pointed out, is front mount, which generally involves body / bumper mods.

Might be time to take it out for a bit of thrashing; any issues might show up whilst. If not, you’re prolly good to go...

Here is a picture of my set up when I first installed it (before the engine was installed), this large Setrab cooler is the Only oil cooler for my 2270 engine, I'm using a DTM shroud so there is no stock oil cooler. I currently have a 180 degree sensor that turns the fan on and I can not get the oil temp over 180 degrees. It does have an oil thermostat plumbed into the system, and it works well since the CFR header exits on the drivers side and there are no exhaust pipes under this oil cooler. I actually need to buy the 190 degree sensor to bring my oil temps up a bit.

Anyone thought about putting a head shield on the top side of the exchangers?

Greg W.

It's crossed my mind. But that's about it.

Good news on my setup: no leaks best I can tell. Bad news: temps are still on the higher side of what I would like (assuming my gauge is correct). I'll run with it for now and look into better airflow and/or heat shielding.

Aren't the heat exchangers already a heat shield for the headers? If air is running through them, the exterior should stay pretty cool.

Mine are horribly hot, you can't even get your hands near them.

There's a TON of heat stagnating under the backside of these cars.

This is on mine. It's now covered in adhesive-backed reflective insulation.

It's finally stabilizing the temps around 215-220 (in the line exiting the cooler) on 80+ days.

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Do you still have the original oil cooler in place? No gauge sender in the taco plate?

I guess it depends where you are reading the temp.

As I understand the oil flow -

(1) its picked up from the sump,

(2) through oil pump then to the oil filter


(3) through the stock oil cooler

(4) on to the bearings etc. through the oil galley.

If you are reading the temp inline after the aux cooler your oil temp should drop some more after going through the stock cooler, before going into the engine.

Using a sandwich adapter, after the oil filter the oil goes to the aux cooler then back through the stock cooler to dissipate more heat before going to the bearings etc.

By having the sender for the temp gauge in the taco plate you are reading the oil temp after it has gone through the engine and lubricated/cooled it.

No. Replaced with Tangerine block and thermostat, lines come out of that.


Yes, factory sender in taco plate feeding factory combo gauge. The gauge correlates directly with a Mainely dipstick.


The 215F is being measured by a Race Technologies sender in the cooler exit line back to the engine, feeding the datalog into my Microsquirt (which controls the fan).

So I have three methods of oil temp measurement and they all correlate with each other.

I can add a fourth if you think it'll help...



This is just a good excuse for building an engine over the winter, take advantage of the Microsquirt setup. Shhhh, don't tell the wife....

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At the risk of diverting Rob's thread...you got me to thinking more about this.

My combo gauge and Mainely dipstick agree on temperature, so I'm pretty confident of that. I've rechecked the calibration on the R-T sensor and I have a long history of their sensors in my race cars, so I'm confident of it as well.

But here's the thing I cannot explain.

As noted I'm using the Tangerine block/thermostat and external oil cooler, and measuring the oil temperature on the outlet line of the cooler.

And yet...the temperature is the same or very similar as that in the sump.

Chris Foley and I have gone back and forth on this, and I'm very very confident that we actually have it in the cooler exit line.

But this makes no sense.

I've checked and rechecked the oil cooler lines, and rechecked the sensor calibration.

So this means that either my temp sensor is wrong, the cooler is doing nothing, and/or the ports on the thermostat block aren't what we think they are (but Chris built the block so I'm pretty sure he knows which way they go).

One thing for sure is that between adding the cooler, adding a fan to it, and ducting air to it, my oil temps are stabilizing around 215F on the Mainely dipstick at highway cruise with the fan on 100% of the time.

Everything else is up for grabs.

So Im kind of lost on all the tin you are putting around the cooler. I dont understand the way you mount it. This is my sebert cooler with two pull fans on the back side. I have them wire to just a switch that i flip on if I see the temp going up. Which when we are moving is not that offen. Not the best pictures but I think get how its mounted. Car has been coast to coast including going through the desert with no issues.

more pics

last one

"No issues" meaning exactly what temperatures and how are you measuring them?

What's the front end of that tube connected to?

When you say highway cruise, what do you mean? Flat road, 65 mph is probably only using 30 hp, so your thermal load is pretty low and the cooler may be taking just enough energy out to keep the oil cool, but not show any crazy temperature difference.

If you really load the thing up (say 65 mph cruising up the hills on 84 near exit 68), do you see any temperature differences?

Greg -- Not diverting at all. I'm finding this interesting and useful.

I've never really had a reason to doubt my oil gauge and sender match, but I would like to correlate / validate if possible. I've got a laser thermometer, but it's hard to tell how best to use that to get something accurate. Get the car up to temp, put it up on the lift as soon as possible while warm, and hit the sump plate with the laser thermo? I've tried reaching under the car, even while it's running, but I'm not convinced I'm getting something accurate. The numbers I AM getting are lower than the gauge (my sender is at the taco plate location).

I also have a Mainely by Design dipstick thermo, but for some reason it won't fit in the oil filler tube that's on this case

I've even thought about taping a cooking thermometer underneath the trunk just to get some idea what ambient temps are under there to see what heat transfer potential there is without adding ducting. I think you described it, Greg, as a lot of hot air "stagnating" under there. Sounds about right.

Jim, I live just off I-91 in Middletown off exit 20 so my "test track" for each of these changes has been south on 91 down to around exit 8, then back up. As you know, the land slowly descends toward the Sound. I try to keep the speeds consistent both directions, around 3400/72mph.

With just the cooler, no fan, and Tangerine's surround/mount I was into the red coming north, somewhere around 250F+ and it was 245F when I stopped to check the dipstick. I did not like that at all and baby'd it home.

Removed the cooler surround and it went down about 10-15 degrees but it was still touching the red when I stopped and it was 235 on the dipstick.

I added a fan and had it on 100% of the time and it made very little difference, maybe 5F.

At this point I wanted to get some hard info so I added the temperature sensor into the cooler line and input it into the Microsquirt to log. That seemed to confirm the other numbers. At the same time I also leveraged an output of the 'Squirt to control the fan relay, coming on at 220 and off at 190.

I am figuring I have some strange aero going on under there, stagnant air along with exhaust heat, heat from the engine cooling, heat from the transaxle (I do have new air diverters inder the firewall). I stick my hand under there behind the right axle after pulling off and it's friggin *broiling* under there. That's when I built the ducting (it's just roof flashing riveted into box structures...I call it my monococque). That dropped the temps down to my current level of roughly 215-220 doing the long climb from North Haven to Middletown. I added adhesive-backed insulation to the box later, didn't seem to make much difference.

I'd also like to note that last couple of years with the stock cooler (and stock D-Jet) I was having a very similar oil temp problems this time of year with increased ambient temps. That's why I installed the cooler over the winter (the stock one was not blocked or leaking). So I'm fully aware that I may have some other issues with the engine resulting in this problem.

I'd really like to get enough spare BTU capability to be able to take it to a track day, but I don't think I can do it in the current config.

I'm way open to ideas.

Rob, next time I'm driving I can shoot the IR onto the oil change and taco plates and see how well they correlate to the dipstick.

I like the idea of a cooking thermo to check air temps under there.


Edit: as a somewhat-related aside, I'm also surprised at the enginecompartment/air intake temps on my car. I've got the Intake Air Temp sensor inserted into the bottom of the stock D-Jet air cleaner, and I'm regularly seeing IATs of 130F+ at cruise, and that's with the rain tray removed...so that's all going into the intake for cylinder/head cooling. And that's with all new seals all around the engine tin...

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Really like this idea.

I may try this myself, using a WiFi endoscope to view the temperature changes.

It would be interesting to others results.

Did a couple things today.

- Attached a flexible brake duct hose from the D-Jet snorkel and tye-wrapped the other end to the engine grill so it was pulling in outside air. Intake air temps went from 130 yesterday to 105 today. I bet I could get that even lower with insulation on the airbox. It's hot in there.

- Rob, my IR was showing 205 at the oil change plate and the case right next to it, when the dipstick was showing 212.

Greg

What about a different approach does the horizontal cooling fan set-up from Tangerine cool the engine better and do not need additional oil cooler. I like you have external cooler but have had about same results.

Bluetooth wireless BBQ thermometer to your phone...

I did this yesterday, with the thermometer and Wifi endoscope.

I opened a new thread for this

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=347282

And also linked back to here from it. It may help in future searches.

Can't have too much oil cooler info for these engines.

Hi Greg,
I had experienced the same heat soak problem with tha MAT Sensor mounted in the original D-Jet position (plenum). The plenum is physicaly conected to the engine case and has a huge surface are which is not ventilated well close to the engine case, seeing alot of radiation. During normal driving with CHT of 320°F and oil temps around 215°F MAT was around 149°F. With the open element sender mounted inside the snorkel I was able to reduce the MAT reading down to 118°F under the same conditions mentioned above. This was meassured with the raintray mounted at ambient temp of 83°F.

I think you are still meassuring at a not optimal spot or your MAT Sensor is not an open element sensor.

Regards,
Frank

[/img]
Thanks, Frank! Yeah, my original design had the IAT, an open-element Delphi, mounted on an adapter plate where the D-Jet CSV was. It didn't take long for me to realize it was a heat soak issue. So a few weeks ago I mounted it on the underside of the stock air filter, inline with the snorkel.

Surprisingly, I didn't see a ton of difference, it went from around 140 down to around 130.

I routed some flexible brake cooling hose from the D-Jet snorkel to the underside of the engine grill yesterday and got it down to 105F, 80F ambient.

I'm actually wondering if I should consider installing a draw-down fan on the underside of the engine decklid.

I have my sensor mounted from the top, but the sensor element is twice as long as yours and sticking in the middle of the airstream. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the sender just one with the sensor mounted.


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I see your sensor is also a open element sensor, so I really wonder whay we get so different readings...

I have several oddball things going on, like an IGN4-VW coil that starts cutting out after 30-40 minutes. I attribute that to something different/wrong with my engine/car.

I may try adhesive-backed reflective insulation on the underside of my airbox.

Is it the Ignition coil cutting out or do you struggle with sync loss problems due to too high temps at the Crank Pic-Up Sensor?
Do you have a tooth log?

Very confident it's not synch loss; I'm not logging any synch loss at all except when I "burn" with the car running.

Symptoms are stumbles and the AFR momentarily pegs full lean. I replaced the coil with a new one and it briefly got a lot better but it's starting to come back. Usually runs smooth for a half hour, then very light stumbles til about 45 minutes, then very hard stumbles. Died on me yesterday, I had to coast to a stop. Top of the coil was 184F via IR.

I've been told this coil really likes big wires for power and ground, but I'm using AWG14 for both, didn't seem to affect anything.

I'm thinking it's just getting too hot in the location I have it (on top of where the disty was).

We can discuss in your Megasquirt thread, I need some ideas.

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