I wasn't picking on B&B for their oil coolers. They got their start making exhausts and they had problems with welds that cracked, parts that didn't fit well, nasty resonances (indicating a lack of development) and things of that nature. My assumption has always been that even simple products can need a lot of engineering and many aftermarket companies produce things that will fit but may not be well developed. Look how many companies make intercoolers for turbos and then ask yourself why the top engine builders tend to recommend only two or three of them.

After all of the issues with the exhausts and figuring that there might be a learning curve with a new product, such as a cooler, a company that has designed and produced oil coolers for decades exclusively might be a better bet.

My 2 cents,
JR

Jeff, do you have a dump chute behind the filter?


system was all stock except the cooler

The only B&B products that have consistently been poorly made are their mufflers, their headers and oil coolers have in general been well made products that perform excellently

Steve,
I have a 3.6 with one 72 row Setrab front spoiler mounted oil cooler and the pan mod. The cooler core is about 2" thick where the B&B is a bit bigger. Yesterday I was running down the freeway in about 90 degree ambient temps, pretty high humidity here in San Diego and the temp gauge pegged about 195. This is where the thermostat opens and gauge stays in normal driving. I pulled off the freeway and into my garage about 3 minutes from the freeway. I jumped out and touched the cooler. It was barely warm to the touch. To me, this is a great thing and means I have added cooling capacity.

Remember, temperature difference drives cooling as well as fluid flow (on both sides of the exchanger - air & oil in this case). The fluid flow (oil) is shut off by the external thermostat when more than enough cooling exists.

I ran in similar weather at the track a few weeks back and didn't see temps over 220. I have a Carrera cooler to install if things get out of control. Worst situation for me is traffic, which is hard to predict. I am in the process of installing a thermostatically controlled fan for times when I get caught in traffic.

Thought the data point might be useful to someone.

Doug

That's reassuring, Doug, and reinforces what I'm increasingly coming to think--that my cooler is working just fine and that the reason it won't get hot to the touch is that my air-evacuation chute behind it is so efficient.

Do you have a picture of this dump chute? Is this the pan that Elephant sells that gets welded into the front trunk?

Funny, I post a photo about once every five years, and I posted a shot of the dump chute about two hours ago, on another thread. Here it is again...and yes, it is Elephant's. Highly recommended. (Actually, this is a photo of where it goes, not the chute itself, but if you go to the Elephant site you can see a couple of pictures of it.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1252274492.jpg

Thanks Steve, I just saw it in the other thread. Due to the lower fitting hitting the inside of my IROC bumper, my Setrab is less than 1/2 an inch from the tub, and my oil temps are not what I would like them to be. I'm hoping this will solve things, although it would probably be easier to get a different bumper.

It's so effective that I went for a year thinking my oil cooler wasn't working--it never got warm to the touch, even, though the line to it was hot. Apparently the airflow through it is so strong that it carries away all the heat from the finning. I just did a three-hour round trip to Lime Rock ( to see a Mercedes W 154 GP car started and run on a track for the first time since the mid-'50s), a lot of it at 80 on a warm day, and the temp never got over maybe 190.

Did you block off all the air around the cooler so that it is forced to go through it? My car hits 250 on track no matter what the outside temp is. Very frustrating after spending a lot of money replacing my 28 row brass cooler with the Setrab. I'm considering the Elephant air dam (assuming it's legal in stock class), or adding a 2nd cooler in series.

The only time I've ever seen 250, in the last five years including numerous DEs at Lime Rock and Watkins Glen, was when my thermostat failed once (on the road).

There's really no need to physically block off all the air around the cooler unless I wanted to get terminally fussy. The cooler sits up right against the air dump, and though maybe three percent of the air leaks out, the other 97 percent has no choice but to go straight through the cooler and out under the belly.

Steve, do you have a picture of the chute installed in your car?

No, I don't. There's really nothing much to see. If you look at the photo I posted of the bulkhead cutout, it looks like the chute is enormous. But once it's installed, all you can see from inside the trunk is a moderate-size sloping sheetmetal plate that extends back about six inches, doesn't even interfere with the stock spare tire. The piece is well-engineered to not interfere with much of anything once installed. As I remember, you lose the center bracket for the jack, and that's it.

Thanks for the input Steve. It sounds like this may help. I am waiting on a ruling from the scruts as to whether or not it is legal.

JUst put in an RX7 Cooler and sell the B&B. Buy beer or scotch with the proceeds... see my post from a month ago on this.

I was doing some spirited driving yesterday with my car in 27°C weather and my temps still did not get above 190°F.

OK, one other idea to ponder...

Get your car good and hot, or at least up to temp. Compare the thermostat inlet and outlet line temps (the ones between the engine and the TS and the TS and the oil tank) - if these are the same or similar, your TS is not open all the way. If you detect a delta T, compare the temp of the return line from the front of the car to the line between the TS and the oil tank. This will determine if your problems is with the TS or not.

One other apparent issue that some people overlook and others obsess over is how much restriction there is in your cooler loop. If the TS only opens partially, your actual flow through your cooler loop will be proportional to the ratio of pressure drop through the cooling loop and the bypass through the TS.

Don't forget that the cooling circuit is on the scavange side, not the pressure side of the system.

After reading through this whole thread I can't help but think B&B did not put the divider in the end tank with the inlet/oulet fittings, or if they did it fits so poorly that the oil migrates past the divider before being forced through the core tubes.

This would explain the results of your hot water test.

What a coincidence, I was running my '73 at that race and a rock took out my B & B cooler so I am now searching the internet for a replacement and found this thread!

I may look into the Setrab but my car is already set up for the B & B so I may just replace it.

Sorry I didn't see you at Lime Rock. The Mercedes was pretty cool though!

Jim2, that's what I thought a year ago, when I first sent to cooler back to B&B, because I'd heard of a run of coolers with badly welded dividers. But B&B said it flowed just fine.

Then, when I decided a second time that something was wrong and took the cooler off a second time, I took it into a pitch-black room and put a Mini-Maglite onto one of the inlet/outlets. It fit near-perfectly, no light leakage, and when I looked into the other inlet/outlet, there wasn't a hit of any light leaking through. If there's a welding fault, which I don't think there is, it's microscopic.

Bottom line is that my car can be run hard for an hour and a half on a hot day and the temps never get over 195, so I've decided that if I have a weird oil cooler, it's magically working just fine nonetheless.

Steve,

You should borrow or buy an IR thermometer. This is what I used to check the delta T across my cooler to determine if it was working and the effectiveness. I only see about 20 - 30° across the cooler. Of course, I can't check it while under full throttle conditions on the track with the IR thermometer.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1250519657.jpg

Scott.