ok Steve im no expert but i had a similar problem. i installed a new elephant racing oil cooler kit with the ribbed lines and a carrera type cooler in the front fender. after running the car and getting the temp up to 205-210 deg. the return line was staying cold and the pressure or feed was hot to the touch to the cooler. so thinking that maybe i had a bad cooler or maybe plugged i removed it and installed a loop in between the two lines. took the car out and it did the same thing no real heat to the return. i called chuck at elephant racing and he told me that i probably wouldn't get the t-stat to open unit it saw some track time to really get the temps up to hold the t-stat open long enough to keep the flow going. i thought this was strange as my 930 and my carrera both open and i can here them running like a trickle of water under the car. so i waited for my first track day and ran the heck out of the car for ten laps and when i brought the car in to the pits both lines and the cooler are hot. im thinking maybe my t-stat is only opening a small amount until i really heat things up. my return wont get hot until about 230ish on my numerical gage. i know this isnt a big help but i had a similar experience and mine wouldn't get hot at normal driving as well. and still wont for that matter.
cheers ed
this is the system i am using

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1248514244.jpg

That's interesting. I always thought the thermostat opened all the way at 180 degrees, maybe not...

The first time I noticed that the oil cooler didn't seem to be working _was_ at a DE, at Lime Rock. I don't remember the oil temperature I saw at the track--it was a couple of years ago--but it was a warmish Connecticut day, and I did a 25-minute run, came in, immediately felt the oil cooler and it was cool.

Nesxt thing I'm gonna try is wait for a warm day, tape up the front of the cooler, run the car for awhile on the road to get the oll temp as high as I can, and then pull off and let the car run to 3,000/4,000 rpm for awhile while parked, which will mean absolutely no airflow around the cooler in any way, see if that gets some heat into it.

But I am encouraged that several people have mentioned that their coolers don't get hot either in road use.

Stephen,

OK, back to first principles. If the inlet line is hot, and the outlet line is hot, but the cooler core is not hot, then OIL IS NOT FLOWING THROUGH THE COOLER.

Sorry about the emphasis but I want to be sure we're in agreement. It doesn't matter whether it's blocked internally, there's an air bubble inhibiting it, a mouse crawled in it, whatever. No hot no oil.

Take it off and replace it temporarily with a piece of -12 or -16 or whatever you used to plumb it up front. Hell, if you used -16, I have a boatload of -16 left over from my own install which is yours for the asking. (Now that I said that I'll get a bunch of PMs from dudes in Spokane asking me to send it to THEM for free and pay the freight besides). Then note the temps. I bet you end up actually lower, because something is inhibiting the flow.

Finally, give that cooler the "water test." Throw it into the nearest convenient lake or stream, if it floats, retreive it and reinstall.

Buy a Setrab 172 row and fab up some brackets. http://www.setrabusa.com/oilcoolers.htm
I have one with the outlets on each end, light weight, indestructible, and keeps the temps below 185 even in full race conditions. (OK, my race engine is a 155hp 911E, which produces slightly more thermal emissions than a panting field mouse, but it used to shoot up to 260 during a race).

This Billy Boat stuff, from the exhausts to this G_d blessed cooler of yours, gives me absolutely NO CONFIDENCE in their QC.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1248526427.jpg

Unless you have t/ped a 3.6 into your car there are 2x t-stats & 2x oilcoolers(at least)

That means that there will be 2 oil temp plateaus

both oil t-stats start to open at the same temps, ~185F

the engine mounted t-stat sees hot oil first, the oil temp rises until this one opens sending oil to the engine mounted cooler, tmps will stay the same and then gradually rise if ambients are high enough to require more cooling. Eventually the oil that the wheel well mounted cooler sees is hot enough to allow it to open sending oil to the front, again the temps will stabilaize and gradually rise depending on amabiantes and engine thermal loads.

I agree that it is unlikely to have an air lock in a B&B, internally there is just a loop that goes from the passenger side to the drivers side and back. To bew sure the inlet should be at the bottom and outlet at the top. You can open the cooler drain to check to see that it is full.

If you are seeing 200+ on the oil temp gauge all the lines and should be too hot to comfortably touch the cooler fins will also be hot but not as hot as the lines.

When I last opened the cooler drain, several days ago with the cooler in place on the car before I removed it for testing, I got exactly a quart out of it, which sounds to me like it'd be the capacity of the cooler.

As John Cramers says, you don't have enough oil going through the cooler. The entire circuit should be hot not just the supply line. The most likely problem is the oil is being bypassed by the thermostat (stuck in closed position) or a bad pressure relief (broken spring) in the circuit.

All of the oil in the scavenge circuit should go through the cooler. Yours is going directly to the tank.

-Andy

The wheel-well thermostat can't possibly be stuck closed. The supply line _to_ the cooler is quite hot, meaning the thermostat is open.

Wouldn't the fact that I have absolutely normal oil pressure (about 15 psi per 1,000 rpm when warm) at all times mean the pressure-relief valve is fine?

Steve,
I did read your entire post. Considering your snotty attitude, I'll be sure not to read any more.

Interesting. All three of the questions you asked in your post are amply answered in my original post

+1

I have the same exact set up as carrera turbo - elephant finned lines and wide mouth carrera cooler. Mine get hot to the touch when the gauge reads 200.

Steve,

The thermostat is not like a light switch: It's not Open OR Closed. It is a mechanical valve that can be open from 0 to 100%.

Some oil is flowing, because the line is Hot. Your symptoms can all be explained by a slightly open valve, flowing a small amount of hot oil.

Why is this so hard to understand?

The thermostat doesn't open all the way when it reaches a set temperature. It opens gradually, oever a range of temperatures. Yours may be opening but not all the way. It doesn't take much flow to fill an oil line.

The routing of the lines matters, particularly if you are not getting much flow. There's no reason to not mount the incoming line to a cooler on the bottom, so it is self-bleeding to an extent.

The oil pressure has nothing to do with whether the thermostat is open or closed, so the reading doesn't tell you anything.

I'm not a fan of anything B&B makes. I had a Ruf cooler on a 930 and it got nice and toasty. It also kept the oil at the same temperature no matter how the car was driven. Lots of capacity.

JR

Again, Steve, I have heard on this forum (for whatever it's worth :)) that the supply line is ALWAYS open; when the thermostat finally opens it allows oil to RETURN to the tank.

Meaning, it's possible your t-stat is not opening all the way, but your supply line is still warm, because there is always oil in it.

Can you use a stethoscope with the engine warm and the car running to see if oil is actually moving in the lines? I can hear it in my SC just sitting at a light.

Actually you didn't answer any of them; maybe you should read your initial post.

How the auxiliary thermostat works.........
 

Steve,

The auxiliary thermostat works like this:
1). When engine oil temp. is below 180°F, the warm oil is diverted back directly to the oil filter (tank) via auxiliary thermostat. The oil line (feed) to the auxiliary radiator, radiator, and return line (from radiator to aux. thermostat) are all filled with oil after start (engine cold).
2). The oil line opening to auxiliary cooler is always open. It does not close or open. It is the return that slides up or down. This is a common misconception by many.
3). Once the oil temp. reaches approx. between 180°-185°F, the return valve orifice will open gradually thus allowing the warm oil from the radiator to flow back to the tank.
4). Subsequently, as the return valve (cooler) opens, a corresponding amount of valve restriction happens to the regular oil valve return. As such, a constant flow of oil is maintained during the whole operation from cold to warm condition.
5). In summary: The slide valve in the auxiliary thermostat controls the flow of oil in two (2) circuits namely warm oil from engine to tank and warm oil from auxiliary radiator or cooler.

Tony

If it was my car, the first thing I would verify is that the thermostat is opening.

JR

Yeah, I feel confident the thermostat is opening (spring and piston replaced two years ago). Here are some recent IR-temp readings immediately after a run that got oil temp up to an indicated 195 degrees on a 76-degree ambient day.

thermostat body: 188 degrees
outflow oil line measured at jacking point (rocker panel removed): 105 degrees
return flow oil line measured at jacking point: 95 degrees

What this indicates is that the hot oil is flowing to the front oil cooler through the always-open outflow line and is getting a small amount of cooling effect from at least looping through a small part of the oil cooler--hell, maybe it's going all the way through and I'm chasing a phantom--and that there's enough opening in the thermostat, though it's probably still only partially open, to allow the now-semi-hot oil to return.

If the thermostat wasn't opening, the return line would be cool. Also, the last time I had a stuck thermostat, just before replacing the innards, the indicated temp went up to 250 in normal, spirited road driving before I noticed it (my daughter was driving).

In my current situation, I'm having a hard enough time getting the temp up to 195/205 on 80-degree-ambient days, so I have no fear of a stuck thermostat.

If your thermostat was opening, your temperature in the outgoing line would be close to the thermostat temerature. It's not, so either the oil is not hot enough to open it much yet (most likely scenario) or it has a problem.

Keep in mind the lines close to the thermostat will pick up some heat from conduction, whether there is oil flowing or not.

Try running the car in stop and go traffic, or run it hard down a low speed twisty road and see if you can get more heat into the oil. Or, don't worry about it.

JR

Interesting following this thread, Don't know if this is relevant.. I installed the big B &B with after market thermostat.. on my 76s.. two years ago, Had to send cooler back to replace side tank, that had only 3 threads holding large O ring fitting to tank. (no charge)... after first summer... almost consistent 185 deg running temp,, I'm happy.. I thought I had mounted my thermostat to high in the wheel well area because of hearing annoying gurgle when stopped,, but Gogar wrote he hears it in his SC.. wonder if I should have started another thread?

Yes, I know the lines pick up some heat from conduction, which is why I measured the temps about halfway along the oil-line run. Temps measured at the bottom of the rear wheelwell, close to the thermostat, were 140 degrees on the outflow line, 93 on the return-flow line.

I really doubt the temps in the oil lines would be "close to [nearly 190 degrees], and I won't believe that until somebody does an IR reading to prove it.