Jingkun

iTrader: (4)

Well I acquired an oil cooler from an '80 along with its engine, carb, thermal reactor, intake manifold, and all of its emissions crap for about $40 bucks off of a guy on clist a few months back. He even threw in a bucket(thats 4) of blown rotors which I've been shining up for bookends and other decor.

All that aside I'm trying to figure out how to mount this thing without removing my ac, going to an e-fan (I'll do that when I have the money), or switching to the shorty radiator. Really just looking for any advice on this from anyone who may have experience with swapping a 1st gen fmoc into an '83.

Just for note, I've been contemplating ripping out the beehive and getting some SS oil lines attached to it and just throwing it over the top of the rad to hang out front, gotta work better than that coolant. The sooner I get that thing out of my bay, the sooner i'll have a new 20lb baseball...

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

The proper way is to use the SA shorty rad with it. It won't be as effective for overall cooling if you put it in front of the rad; you'll dump oil heat OK, but you'll be transferring some of that heat back into the coolant.

Jingkun

iTrader: (4)

But isn't that normally how they work? Not on the SA mind you but I always thought that most cars had the oil cooler in front of the rad.

DivinDriver

iTrader: (15)

I haven't seen very many other cars that had a stock oil cooler at all.

t_g_farrell

iTrader: (1)

A lot of folks sling it behind and slightly below the cross bar and use the crossbar for
mounting it. Guys that retrofit the FC oil coolers do this on FBs a lot. Try a search on
FC oil cooler writeups. That way its not blocking much of the radiator. You'll need
custom lines as the RB ones won't reach I don't think. You can get an 80s shorty
radiator from rockauto. Thats another option for ya.

captainbizzaro

^+1

Jingkun

iTrader: (4)

Wow that cooler looks beat to hell.

I've seen the write ups and they are all for FC coolers and since I have an earlier sa/fb cooler its built a tad differently. Mostly having to do with the inlet and outlet location on the cooler as well as the mount ability. RBs lines wont reach since they are cut to stock spec and the mounting location is further forward than if I had the shorty rad.

I'm also really curious as to how bad the beehive is for cooling. I've read that its horrible but is that just because the coolant running through it is hotter than the oil as I've read around or could it actually be a decent cooler if you were to plug off the coolant passages and just use it as an air cooler?

captainbizzaro

Yeah you're right there-it ain't pretty but it holds oil and is still very effective which is more than can be said for most 'uprated' aftermarket coolers so that's good enough for me.

The beehive debate will rage on.....

IanS

iTrader: (4)

If you blocked off the coolant to a beehive cooler it would drastically lower its efficiency. The heat sinks on the beehive just arent large enough to actually shed a decent amount of heat. Also, where the beehive is located doesnt help much. There just isnt that much airflow to help pull the heat from the heatsinks. Not like a front mount with its large surface area and ambient air being shoved through it at speed.

trochoid

iTrader: (6)

Oil coming from the rotors is much much hotter than the coolant. The beehive just helps stabilize/balance the oil and coolant temps, but not well. I did the writeup in the archives on retrofitting the FC FMOC, unfortunately I'm not that familiar with the SA/FB bracketry or hose bungs. If you use the writeup as a general guide, you should be able to fab your own brackets and prep the hoses for crimping.

If nothing else, toss up some pics of the FMOC's mounting tabs and the hose ends and I'll take a look at them.

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-archive-71/cooling-oil-how-install-fc-oil-cooler-1st-gen-write-up-pics-478521/