Home built oil cooler

[fast924S]

Hey guys, This might be a stupid question but Im gonna ask anyway. I was sitting at work (very slow day) playing with a heater core that I replaced from a toyota tacoma just last week. I started to think about my P-car project and how I need a external oil cooler. Then I was like wow this heater core is just a perfect size and has very easy connections. The only thing I noticed is that it seems to be all brass. So my question is could you make a oil cooler out of a heater core? My only 2 concers are that its made out of brass and may be too weak to hold the oil pressure and the second thing is I dont know how well the oil will flow in the heatercore since it is made for coolant not thick oil. Any ideas?


Thanx

[Verruckt]

Doesn't the 951's oil cooler have lines off of it for an external oil cooler? That might be a good place to start. I don't think the 911 series has any brass parts in its oil cooler lines. (I think they may be gold) Brass should be good to 300degrees or more.

[nynor]

pour some oil through it and see what kind of flow you get.

[fast924S]

What I was gonna do is use was a sandwich plate that goes between the oil filter and housing and just run it to the oil cooler. I Know that 944 oil can be from 206-258 degrees F depending on outside temp and how hard you push it. Im not sure if the brass will handle this well and I dont know how much PSI it can handle, whats 5bar in PSI?

Here is a link to the sandwitch plates
http://64.202.180.37/files/sp1t.pdf

[Britwrench]

Heater cores are designed for low pressure use. Oil coolers and a/c evaporators and condensers are designed for high pressure use.

There are plenty of different oil coolers around.

[jim302]

Pressure test it to twice the max your oil pressure goes for 1 hr.
If it passes and has enough flow, use it.

[924Sman]

Plenty of older 911 coolers to use and cheap. With the leakage issues heat cores have I would not consider using oil in it. Nice way to grease up the front tires!

[pokey]

I believe 5 bar is about 74 psi.

[Dean924s]

Get a cooler from a 2nd jen rx7. Fitment may be a bit of an issue as they are a bit wide but they are about the best I have found out there. Here are a couple of pix of one sitting on my front bumper.

[fast924S]

WOW that thing is HUGE, Thats like a extra 3qrts. I dont really have a problem founding one, I just figured since I had a good heater core that mybe I could do something with it, But the more I think about it the more I just want to do it right.

[Zero10]

I want to do the RX7 mod. One day I'll get down to it and find a local oil cooler to use.

[Dean924s]

I was looking at my oil pressure this morning and it was over 100PSI cold. If you pressure tested the heater core to say 250 PSI for an hour I don't think you should have any problems. How about mounting it? I would be concerned that it would be easy to damage it as it is not designed to be in the open. You would probably have to use a couple of layers of hardware cloth over it to protect it.

[jim302]

Originally posted by Dean924s
I was looking at my oil pressure this morning and it was over 100PSI cold. If you pressure tested the heater core to say 250 PSI for an hour I don't think you should have any problems. How about mounting it? I would be concerned that it would be easy to damage it as it is not designed to be in the open. You would probably have to use a couple of layers of hardware cloth over it to protect it.

If you do pressure test it at that pressure, do it inside a bucket of water to minimize flying objects. Compressed gasses are nothing to play with.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Why not just find a nice cheap used motorcycle cooler? That's what I'm gonna' do on mine - I had a spare one for my bike just sitting around. I'll pressure test it to be sure, but I'll bet dollars to donuts it'll work wonderfully. They're reasonably compact as well and won't add an absurd amount to the overall sump capacity.

[924RACR]

I highly recommend using the Tru-Cool plate-stack type oil cooler style; very inexpensive and durable. Summitt et al sell them under the B+M brand as trans coolers (make sure you don't use push-on barb hose types, gotta go higher quality than that or you'll burst a hose and oil the track, BTDT). The best value that I'm using right now is an 8.5"x11" one from Racer Parts Wholesale, cost was around $50-60 new. Incredible level of cooling, never overheats anymore, in spite of the hardest flogging in 100 deg temps ambient (running WOT for over 20 minutes on a road course). I've also stuffed the thing into the gravel traps more times than I care to admit, without damage - just poke out all the gravel bits. I doubt even the expensive Mocal coolers would survive that.

Sandwich plates are great, though I prefer a remote filter mount adapter even more - no more inverted oil filter mountings.

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/cooler1.htm

OK, it's $65 for the 8x11". Maybe it's Summit or Jeg's that has it cheaper.

[Dean924s]

Where did you mount it? Do you have any photos?

[..P]

I would most certainly NOT use a heater core for oil. With the amount of time and energy it will take to do the install, and the time and energy it will cost you later, and money too, I strongly recommend getting a proper oil cooler and doing it right.

Good idea, but not good enough to actually install and run with reliability.

Regards, P

[Britwrench]

Or just buy a 944 Turbo set up and be done with it. (always assuming you actually need one for the street)

[toolboy62]

Having lived in cold climates, I would recommend that you either keep the stock oil/water cooler, or if you have to go with an oil/air one, use an oil thermostat inline with it to allow the oil to warm up properly. I actually like the stock oil coolers that Porsche and also VW used; I bought an '84 GTI without an oil cooler and added a stock one from a GLI. Not only did peak oil temps go down, but the oil got up to full temperature much faster. Lets you beat on it that much sooner

If you allow an oil/air cooler to have full flow all the time, the oil may never hit a proper operating temp in the winter...

just one guy's opinion...

nate

[fast924S]

I wont be driving the car in the winter, But after thinking about it I think Im gonna just spend the cash and HAs a sandwitch plate with a thermo and run the lines to a Motec oil cooler, I want the cooler cus I tend to beat the hell out of my p-car and I willl be doing track soon too