A track is being built close to my home, so my dreams of running my FD on a track can now be fufilled. But that also means I need some more upgrades to better handle beating the crap out of my car for laps at a time. Having a touring, I only have one ten year old oil cooler. I've seen two oil cooling systems that have puiqed my interest: the rotary extreme and the fluidyne. The RE is a couple of mammoth coolers. The fluidynes are smaller, and I haven't heard anything good or bad about them. Didn't even know they were available until a few weeks ago. The Crooked Willow ones I'd preffer to stay away from. I've read too many posts about owners having them break and dump oil. Not cool. Keep in mind that this car will also be street driven. So should I splurge on the mammoth RE coolers, or will the fluidynes be adequate?

 

I've had my mocal oil coolers on my FD for a long time and no leaks at all.. Theyre the crooked willow coolers...

 

Even though I have yet to post my review of the RE oil coolers after having them installed for a year (sorry Chuck!), I can vouch that the RE setup plain works. I have the dual 25-row cooler setup. Yes, I would rather have ducting, but the coolers are so damn big that they pretty much fill the entire oil cooler spot behind the openings, so it isn't like they aren't getting plenty of air.

I used to see 210-220F oil temps in summer driving just driving around in normal driving. Now, they are 180F or less. On the track, I was hitting 250-260F oil temps on a 50F day, now the hottest oil temps I've seen were 220-230F on a 103F day, and that was only after I did a few laps with my water temps at 230F. The coolers have kept the temps down to 210F or so on the other track days I've done in slightly more reasonable weather.

In effect, the RE kit lowered my oil temps 40F over the stock single cooler setup. That's money well spent given the importance of oil cooling on these cars.

BTW, I skipped on the CWC kit because of the hard connection at the engine block (otherwise a great design). The RE kit does not do this and has a much preferable mounting setup IMO.

I know nothing about the Fluidyne kit that the rx7store is selling, other than it's a little cheaper. I CAN tell you this though, Chuck personally came over on a Saturday afternoon to help me wrap up the install (Reza, another local member with the kit also came over to help -- thanks guys!). If you buy Chuck's kit, I can guarantee excellent customer support -- although I won't say Chuck will come to your house , I will say that he is reachable by phone/email and is happy to help.

 

You could also add a used second oil cooler from an R1 model. Make sure it is well ducted and you should be ok for track days.

 

Rynberg, in regard to your "before" temps, were you using dual stock oil cooler's or a single stock oil cooler (considering that your car is a 95 pep)?

 

He says in his post that the comparison is from his stock single cooler setup.

 

oops! thanks. I gotta stop reading this forum at work .

 

As a comparison, from several people I've talked to, the stock R1/R2 dual coolers will run about 20F cooler than the single stock cooler, so the RE kit is another 20F cooler than the stock duals.

This also matches up with comments from Chris Regan (CrispyRX7) that he was hitting 250F oil temps with the stock dual coolers on hot track days and that the CWC kit lowered those temps 15-20F or so. From this I gather that the RE and CWC kits will cool about the same -- the CWC uses smaller but ducted coolers and the RE uses much bigger but unducted coolers.

Fab up any ducting or use an aftermarket front end with bigger front openings and the RE kit will have the cooling advantage (as it should - 25 row vs 19 row). That and I really hate the hard connection to the engine block on the CWC kit, which is the reason I went with Chuck's kit.

 

Rynberg,

how is Chuck's connected and where is the thermostat placed? I have the CWR oil coolers and the CF ducts to fit the 99 spec nose (one of the few). The only issue is that I had a failure at that hard connect point that cost me my last engine and current rebuild status.

 

Will a second oil cooler be of any advantage for street driving or is one just fine?

 

many people run with one but the 2 oil cooler steup on the r model is preferable esp in a hot climate

 

I also have Chucks 25-row, but car is'nt on the road yet. I'm still troubled by the lack of ducts, and want to make some.
eric

 

Do you remember two short hoses that feed the stock coolers located right at the front of the engine? You removed them for the CWC kit. One of the hoses comes right from the pan and the other attaches to the hard line to the oil filter pedestal.

Chuck has metric to AN fittings custom made, so you connect the AN lines to those stock two short hoses. The T-stat is not secured to anything rigidly and ends up being located around the anti-roll bar in the middle. Mine is securely zip-tied up above the bar. It's a bit of a PITA to get all the lines routed there around the anti-roll bar (different than the CWC) but everything works out fitting well and is out of the way.

I'll post a pic of the two hoses. Sorry I don't have any with the AN lines connected.



For a comparison, here's the stock vs 25-row Earl's cooler:

 

Personally, I think every FD should have dual oil coolers, no matter the driving usage. I was running 210-230F oil temps in street driving in the summer. Those are POST cooler temps. I personally think that's too hot and it drives the water temps up too.

The ducts aren't an issue. Yes, they would be more effective with ducting, but as you can see from the info I posted above, they are as effective as the CWC ducted 19-row coolers. Unless you are tracking the car in hot weather, the oil temps are almost too COLD, even without ducting and at normal driving speeds.

 

Excellent! Thanks for the pics.

 

I also have the Rotary Extreme oil coolers and love them. The install is pretty straighforward. Like Rynberg said, Chuck is great with customer support if you have any problems. It doesn't take much engineering to fab up some duct work.....here is what mine looks like.

 

Man, that is real clean. Very nice.

 

I highly recommend getting the dual oil cooler kit from rotorsports racing.

Their website is www.rotorsportsracing.com and includes dual 20 row oil coolers with a mocal oil t-stat and already pre-cut lines with the fittings already installed on them, good instruction manual and nice fit, I have these on my car. Unfortunately my car isnt on the street yet so I cant comment on cooling issues but the coolers are huge for a 20 row.

Id check it out if youre in the market.

 

so rynberg,

for street driving and potential track, you would recommend RE's cooling?
im a tad confused... does the RE have duals?

 

The RE runs $1,200 to $1,400 is a chunk a change. Looks beautiful, but unless you are going to track the car, it's a bit much for simple street use.

 

RotaryExtreme has both; a single oil cooler upgrade and a dual oil cooler upgrade.

 

Nice job Scrub.

 

It's $1200 -- and yes, overkill for street use. I wholeheartedly agree. Like I said above, the stock dual coolers are adequate for all purposes except tracking the car in hot weather. As I regularly track the car in temps above 85F, I consider this a mandatory reliability mod FOR MY situation.

The problem with getting stock dual coolers is that they are rarely for sale used, and new parts cost as much as Chuck's kit.

 

Interesting looking kit. The way they routed the lines and located the t-stat is completely different than with the RE kit or CWC kit.

I don't know how the clearances would work there with the stock radiator pan and A/C condenser and P/S lines. I need more pics.

 

That's the kit Jason is selling at the RX7 store