Reducing engine oil temperatures on track

[Church 209]

One also should remember that all oils have their working temperatures. No need to cool below if it's still perfectly within their range, even if it seems that due being above water boiling temps is too hot, yet it's beneficial for oil to quicker heat up to. It's when those temps are exceeded, faster oil brake down happens with it loosing it's properties & shortening change intervals or engine life.

So overall for majority of twins that are lightly modded, still NA instead of forced induction, and that mostly get driven daily at different ambient temps due yearly weather change and see only few trackdays instead of being dedicated track toys, those oil to water coolers look better fitting alternative.

[Rich 378]

An extra consideration for the mocal water-oil coolers is that the smaller unit has just over twice the oil pressure drop of the medium sized unit. So it's probably worth going for the medium unit regardless of the state of tune of the engine.

[Lauren 2259]

6 hours ago, Rich said:

My concern with an oil to air cooler is getting the oil warm enough in daily driving. Ade had problems with his not really warming up unless he ragged it with a 99C takeoff plate. A water to oil setup eliminates that issue.

I'm thinking smaller size mocal will be a good bet for my car, that said it's not a huge price difference with the medium one either.

That's why you have a thermostat on the sandwich plate. I have that setup with a 19 row cooler on my AE86. 

[Kodename47 446]

2 hours ago, Lauren said:

That's why you have a thermostat on the sandwich plate. I have that setup with a 19 row cooler on my AE86. 

Still takes longer to warm up if the cooler is decent size in cold airflow.

[Ade 517]

2 hours ago, Lauren said: That's why you have a thermostat on the sandwich plate. I have that setup with a 19 row cooler on my AE86. 

Still takes longer to warm up if the cooler is decent size in cold airflow.

Yeap as I said in my previous post, there is a little trickle flow with all the mocal t stats.

I know people have had the same issue with the perrin, mishimoto and HKS t stats too.

[Ade 517]

An extra consideration for the mocal water-oil coolers is that the smaller unit has just over twice the oil pressure drop of the medium sized unit. So it's probably worth going for the medium unit regardless of the state of tune of the engine.

Depends what the actual pressure drop on our car is though. If its still low enough then will be fine.

The air to air radiators drop a lot of pressure. I know the popular 19 row mocal radiator drops about 10psi on our cars. Ideally you want the largest cross sectional area as possible and the shortest length.

Oil sits at around 100C on the stock setup, so even with stock thermostat (90C) it will pull oil temps down a tad.

[Mark@Abbey M/S 235]

16 minutes ago, Ade said:

Yeap as I said in my previous post, there is a little trickle flow with all the mocal t stats.

I know people have had the same issue with the perrin, mishimoto and HKS t stats too.

All thermostatic take off plates will have a small amount of trickle of oil as this is what passes the oil across the end of the wax stat that opens/shuts the oil flow to the cooler.

There are + and - for both Oil cooler sets ups , air to oil/water to oil heat exchangers.  The FA20 motors do seem to warm up pretty quickly oil temp wise we have seen this on the Nissan VQ motor as well the oil is used to control a lot of extra modern features than older cars so the oil is worked harder in its usage.

Also beware on cheaper make oil cooler matrix's the cheaper ones restrict flow and cause higher pressure drops than quality matrix like from Mocal/Sebtrab.

 

 

[AJ124 118]

@Mike @Deacon Can you share the details on your Hel set up's?. Oil cooler is next on my list.

[Deacon 1357]

1 minute ago, AJ124 said:

@Mike @Deacon Can you share the details on your Hel set up's?. Oil cooler is next on my list.

They're setrab cores and 19 row. What else would you like to know?

[Ade 517]

1 minute ago, AJ124 said: @Mike @Deacon Can you share the details on your Hel set up's?. Oil cooler is next on my list.

They're setrab cores and 19 row. What else would you like to know?

Is that the 330mm width (600series)?

[Mark@Abbey M/S 235]

9 minutes ago, Ade said:

 

They're setrab cores and 19 row. What else would you like to know?

 

 

Is that the 330mm width (600series)?

What sizes hoses are Hel using? -8 or -10?

[Rich 378]

3 hours ago, Lauren said:

That's why you have a thermostat on the sandwich plate. I have that setup with a 19 row cooler on my AE86. 

I'm aware of that, but as mentioned, Ade had a 99C thermostat on his plate and was still seeing oil temps around 80C while cruising on the motorway. That's a little low for my liking on a daily. I now you think oil to air is the better choice, and for a track it does give better heat rejection, but other considerations are also factors. For instance, aside from better daily temps, a water to air cooler is a much more robust solution; it's much less likely to pick up a pinhole leak from road debris or be damaged in a front end collision.

@Ade Am I right in thinking you fitted yours without draining the oil? Also did you use the eye-wateringly expensive Toyota coolant to refill?

[Mike 458]

2 minutes ago, Mark@Abbey M/S said:

What sizes hoses are Hel using? -8 or -10?

-10

[Rich 378]

Also, I found this graph of performance:

I don't know what sort of flow our oil system gives, but pressure drop is 0.3 bar (4.35 psi) and 0.6 bar (8.7 psi) for the medium and small cores at 20 l/min, which compares well with a 10 psi drop across a 19 row cooler.

[Deacon 1357]

4 minutes ago, Rich said:

I'm aware of that, but as mentioned, Ade had a 99C thermostat on his plate and was still seeing oil temps around 80C while cruising on the motorway. That's a little low for my liking on a daily. I now you think oil to air is the better choice, and for a track it does give better heat rejection, but other considerations are also factors. For instance, aside from better daily temps, a water to air cooler is a much more robust solution; it's much less likely to pick up a pinhole leak from road debris or be damaged in a front end collision.

@Ade Am I right in thinking you fitted yours without draining the oil? Also did you use the eye-wateringly expensive Toyota coolant to refill?

I'm pretty sure @Mike did some logs without an oil cooler and didn't see much more than 80 anyway.

Also, I didn't think @Ade had a 99°c thermostat when he had his fitted?

[Rich 378]

1 minute ago, Deacon said:

I'm pretty sure @Mike did some logs without an oil cooler and didn't see much more than 80 anyway.

Also, I didn't think @Ade had a 99°c thermostat when he had his fitted?

Ade's number from the other forum, for reference (hope you don't mind me quoting these @Ade):

I did some logs while cruising on the motorway today. Oil temp is a bit low to be honest. The 99C mocal thermostat still flows about 10% so the radiator is still influencing oil temps on the motorway. A quick hoon gets it into the 90's°C so it's a compromise i'll have to make for the sake of keeping temps down on the track. I would have expected Oil temps to be about 95°C without the oil cooler. Speed Oil Temp Coolant Temp Ambient Temp Intake Temp (post charger) Fuel Eco 60MPH 79-80°C 75-76°C 14°C 19-20°C 56MPG 75MPH 80°C 75-76°C 14°C 18-19°C 46MPH

He is running the low temp coolant stat which would reduce things, but that still seems low. I'll try to get some logging in my car.

[Mike 458]

Daily driving (not motorway) I see about 86/87c, extended driving and motorway, highest I've seen is low 90s. Track is the only time I see it >100C

[Rich 378]

More on pressure drops, Mocal have a graph for their oil to air coolers:

That suggests a 10 psi drop across a 19 row is well above 60l/min which seems very high! Maybe includes fittings though, which would affect things. It seems the laminova coolers are somewhat more restrictive than an oil to air cooler would be, though the shorter lines will help offset that somewhat.

[Ade 517]

3 hours ago, Lauren said: That's why you have a thermostat on the sandwich plate. I have that setup with a 19 row cooler on my AE86. 

I'm aware of that, but as mentioned, Ade had a 99C thermostat on his plate and was still seeing oil temps around 80C while cruising on the motorway. That's a little low for my liking on a daily. I now you think oil to air is the better choice, and for a track it does give better heat rejection, but other considerations are also factors. For instance, aside from better daily temps, a water to air cooler is a much more robust solution; it's much less likely to pick up a pinhole leak from road debris or be damaged in a front end collision.

@Ade Am I right in thinking you fitted yours without draining the oil? Also did you use the eye-wateringly expensive Toyota coolant to refill?

You don't need to drain the oil just the coolant.

It pretty easy apart from getting the coolant pipe back on with the mocal laminova.

You can put the same coolant back in, its good for something like 12 years. However after seeing the casting sand from Nigels strip down I decided to change it.

I used Millers Alpine Red longlife. It meets all the requirements set out in the car manual. Plus it matches the colour of my car so its a no brainer really 😂

After draining I flushed it out with a few litres of deionised water first.

[Mark@Abbey M/S 235]

Also from the Think Catalogue is this.

Laminova Oil Coolers

Recommended Sizes;

It is difficult to come up with a meaningful performance figures as these are dependent upon oil/water flow, figures that are rarely known, A C43-90 would give a similar performance to a 10 row oil air to oil cooler , a C48-130 a 16 row and a C43-330 to a 25 row cooler.

[Ade 517]

More on pressure drops, Mocal have a graph for their oil to air coolers:

That suggests a 10 psi drop across a 19 row is well above 60l/min which seems very high! Maybe includes fittings though, which would affect things. It seems the laminova coolers are somewhat more restrictive than an oil to air cooler would be, though the shorter lines will help offset that somewhat.

That 10psi was at the sandwich plate before and after which includes the restriction of the thermostatic plate, 1.5meters of oil lines and fittings.

[Mark@Abbey M/S 235]

You can also play with the water flow through the Laminova cooler to control the oil temps. Think make a Full/Partial Water restrictor for the Laminova cooler. 

[Ade 517]

Daily driving (not motorway) I see about 86/87c, extended driving and motorway, highest I've seen is low 90s. Track is the only time I see it >100C

Thats interesting. Mine would sit in the high 90s on the motorway.

[Ade 517]

Mines the C43-180. Peak oil temps (after a long track session) of around 110C is pretty low and much lower than a 16 Row air to air gives. Better ducting rather than just putting it in front the water radiator will obviously help though. There are so many variables, im just glad I found a setup I am more or less happy with.

[Mike 458]

15 minutes ago, Ade said:

Thats interesting. Mine would sit in the high 90s on the motorway.

How much accelerating do you do? Only time mine went over 95c was under acceleration at the end of 50 zones