I ran a DE this weekend and the weather was hot, averaging high 80's to low 90's. By the end of a 20 minute session, the temperature guage was bumping right up to the red mark. A "parade lap" would quickly drop it back down.

I did a quick search on cooling and I ran across a link to BAT. They have a unit that mounts to the engine lid. Price seems reasonable and it might even be DIY.

My car is 50/50 driver and DE. Anyone have any experience with this setup? Am I wasting time thinking about it and should I just go ahead and do a front mount?

Thanks for comments.

Something like this:

http://www.aircooled.net/new-bin/viewprodu...022&cartid=

with a thermostat sandwhich adapter above your oil filter and a thermo sensor to click on the fan would be all you need I bet. Put it above your tranny, don't worry about running lines all the way to the front. Works perfect on my t4ed Beetle, oil never gets above 185. I don't have an exhaust system running underneath it though, but at speed in a DE I don't think that would matter.

-Chris

I put mine under the rear trunk...

If I wanted it to work good, I would have put it up front, but I didn't want to cut up the car, and I wanted to keep my stock front valence and front bumper.

I have the Mocal thermo sandwich, and 19 row cooler, mounted above the pass side axle. It lowered temps a bit, but not as much as I would have hoped. In 90+ heat, and stop and go/highway driving, I will still see 235-240.

I bought a real nice fan, I suspect that will help with another 10 degrees or so, but I have not installed it yet.

So my advice is that if you don't mind the "look" up front is the way to go.

Ferg

there are various ways to do the cooler up front this is how I did mine.

25 row oil cooler mounted flat in front trunk. 15 1.5" holes drilled directly underneath the cooler.
5 rubber grommets removed from front bulk head, 5 corresponding holes drilled in LE air dam, 1600cfm fan pushing air thru cooler out bottom of car on cool down laps.

Ferg, A fan should help your trunk mounted cooler quite a bit! I like that setup.

HalM, I had an engine grill setup with a fan and it did reduce temps but I think other setups are more efficient. I say this because IMHO with the engine grill setup you are adding heat next to your cooling fan as well as your carb/FI intake! You'd like that air to be as cool as possible too so putting a heat source there probably isn't the best place.

I have a fluidyne DB-30417 in the front now.



I understand completely you not wanting to cut up the car to add a front cooler. Here is another rear setup from Pelican Parts. Have no experience on this setup, and am not advocating it, just wanted to pass on the link.

I'm thinking about a second cooler and will probably go with what Ferg did.

First off, oil temperature is NOT ENGINE TEMPERATURE!!!!!

The 2056 when correctly tuned should not need an external oil cooler to keep temps down- especially one of my combos that generally run much cooler than stock. Always contact me first for recommendations- no one knows that particular engine and it's tuning better than I do.

Do you have alternative instrumentation or is the stock gauge all you have? It is a must to outfit these cars with a head temp gauge as well as an oil temp gauge that actually reads in increments instead of "Red or green".

Mounting anything on the engine klid is not wise.. That heat that is being pulled from the oil is radiated into the engine bay and not only raises fan inlet temps but also throttle inlet temps making for a less efficient charge of air to cool the engine as well as for combustion.

Keeping inlet temps down increases power, efficiency and running temps.

Jake, I'll drop you a note later this evening. Thanks!!!

Toss the stock gauge. How do you know it is getting too hot? The stock gauge is notoriously inaccurate. Oil must be up to at least 212 and there is no reason you can't run much higher with good oil.

In other words you need real accurate data before you can start worrying about temp problems.