Quote:
Originally Posted by 911pcar
Like the best coolant radiators, engineers design enough flow resistance to maximize heat transfer. If the flow rate is too high, heat transfer is compromised. Imagine an oil cooler with passages as large as a garden hose (does that remind you of the trombone cooler?).
If you're worried one cooler is too restrictive, observe the pressure drop by monitoring and comparing the oil pressure drop betw. inlet and outlet.
For max. cooling, route the oil flow in series when two or more coolers are in the system. Oil flow will take the path of least resistance in a parallel flow set up.
Sherwood
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Heres what I am leaning towards, and tell me what you think about the logic:
Change the flow pattern. Right now, stock, flow goes in through the bottom 3 rows, and loops back and comes back through the top three rows
Compared to expensive coolers, that's a lot of resistance. If you look at a Setrab, the flow is much different. It feeds through the top, and goes through 72 short cooler fins to the bottom, and returns. 72 flow through fins definitely have less resistance than 6 long fins.
So, the plan was to change the flow to go through the cooler from left to right. So the oil would have 6 hollow fins to go through... that halves the resistance, and doubles flow. With that easy mod, you can easily hook up the cooler in series, if wanted.
Now, the amount of time the oil spend in the cooler is exactly the same... Lets say that the scavenge pump, hypothetically, pumps 5 gallons a minute. No matter what the route through the cooler, 5 gallons have to go in and 5 gallons have to come out, every minute. So if the oil goes left to right, it travels a shorter distance BUT it is going at 1/2 the speed, so net, its in the cooler for the same time. If you have the oil got through from the left, and circle around and come back on the left, it has to travel twice as fast to go twice the distance.
So either way, the oil is in the cooler for the same length of time.
Thoughts from the science minded folks on here?
Does anyone know the scavenge side pressures, or flow rate? That really determines what can be done. I know lots of folks are driving around with crushed oil lines, and clearly motors aren't blowing up left and right. Really makes me wonder what the flow rate is?
Out of curiosity... if your oil cooler line is completely crushed, and you don't realize it, what happens? Does the oil bypass the front cooler via the thermostat somehow? Of does the scavenge pump shortly fail?
More pics to come, plan to cut the ends off soon...
But for folks buying used mazda coolers, this seems like a solid alternative.