I've just about wrapped up the install of the R1 oil coolers on my touring. The biggest pain was getting the big hard lines run, but I found that by removing the front sway bar mounts and radiator support mounts that it was a lot easier. Everything's in place now, I just am unsure how the plumbing should be, err... plumbed. I have read numerous threads and tried to get as much as I can out of the images on the forums but they seem to be conflicting.

This one doesn't show very clearly which hose connects to which port on the coolers


in one thread rynberg says:
but this does not jive with how my stock touring cooler was being fed. I believe the line from the oil pedestal went to the passenger side fitting of the driver side cooler. I could be mistaken. It's not hooked up anymore.

So basically, what I want to know, just to ease my mind is

a) Oil feed is from the block or the oil pedestal?

b) Is it the driver side or passenger side cooler that receives the oil first

c) which port on each cooler is the inlet and which is the outlet? There's a bigger block/port with the spring mechanism visible in it or the smaller port without.

If someone can answer these questions I can finish this messy job and move on to more fun things like servicing the brakes again ;P

Thanks!

 

The oil flows out of the front cover, to the cooler or coolers, and back to by the oil filter. The lines should pretty much line right up if you have them right. If I recall correctly from why I added the 2nd cooler the Y in the pic should connect to the line from the front cover. The other end should be the return and go by the oil filter.

 

Thanks! That answers two of my questions. So now I know the oil comes from the block and enters the passenger side cooler first, then travels to the driver side cooler and then back up to the oil filter housing. Now I just need to know which ports are inlets and which are outlets. I'm not trusting the alignment of the hardlines since the brackets that hold them in place were sort of twisted up, they might be misleading. I want to make 100% sure I'm hooking it up right the first time

 

How did you install the passenger-side oil-cooler and get access to the driver-side cooler ?

Did you remove the headlights ?

How much time should I expect for this project ?

TIA,
:-) neil
1993 VR Touring waiting to upgrade to DUAL R1 coolers . . .

 

I removed the undertray and the plastic fender liner pieces as well as the headlight bezel. That was enough to install the passenger side oil cooler. This is actually the easiest part. You don't have to remove the bumper or the headlights. I should mention that on my 93 touring, there were studs for the two top mounting points of the passenger side cooler, but there's also a bracket required to mount the bottom mounting point. I didn't have the bracket so I fabbed one up out of metal strapping. Also make sure you have the rubber isolators that fit into the mounting points of the cooler. Mine didn't come with these either but fortunately I had some from another project car.

The hardest part is to snake the big hard lines through the existing mess of a/c and coolant lines. I removed the sway bar bushings and the two radiator support brackets which made a lot of room, and then fed the hard lines from the passenger side to the driver side. The reason I did it this way is there's less "stuff" cluttering up that area on the passenger side so it was easier to feed the lines through that way. The lines pass through the gap of the radiator support bracket, in front (towards the nose of the car) of the lower radiator hose, then back through the radiator support bracket on the other side. Once the lines are fed through and bolted in place, you can put all the stuff back.

I gave myself the whole weekend but it really wasn't necessary. Including an oil and filter change and some other miscelaneous things while the undertray was off (foam insulation around the radiator to block off escaping air) I'd say the project took about 10 hrs to complete working by myself and taking frequent breaks. I'm sure it could be done a lot quicker but I was mucking about doing other things at the same time. Just plan on a sore back, some bruised knuckles, motor oil in your hair and lots of grime falling in your eyes. Good times. Oh yeah, had to make a trip to Sears as well, you're going to need a 23mm wrench if you don't have one already. There's no way to get a socket on the oil feed banjo bolt and you'll probably round the bolt off if you try and use a crescent wrench.

Went for a spin tonight and the oil temps were waaaay lower than I have seen them. Much lower even than the water temps. While cruising I was seeing 190 degrees on the water temps and 160 degree oil temps! It was a lot cooler out tonight though, we'll see tomorrow when it's 90 how it works. I was hitting 240 degree oil temps in stop and go traffic on these hot and humid 90 degree days last week. I'm looking forward to going to the track this weekend and seeing how she runs! A lot of work but it'll pay off if I can stop worrying about the temps and just go all out

 

Rynberg may have been describing the flow path on his aftermarket setup which has a seperate oil thermostat. Your thermostat is integral to the driver side cooler. I would think that the driver side cooler would pipe up the same in both single and dual cooler applications with the exception that the supply for the driver side cooler comes from the other cooler vs. the engine block. Flow direction through the thermostat may be important. On my car with the single cooler, the oil supply is connected to the outboard fitting on the cooler and the return (to oil filter pedestal) is connected to the inboard (passenger) fitting.
Hope this helps.

 

It appears as if the passenger side cooler from the R1 also has a themostat in it. I am not sure how it works but since I believe the themostat diverts the flow from the inlet to the outlet when closed, it really shouldn't matter much which way you hook it up - it should work either way. At least that's one theory Anyway I hooked everything up the way it made sense to me and everyhting works beautifully

 

Take care to connect the lines properly.

It isn't the same thing, but I am pretty sure that my Mocal external thermostat (oilstat) DOES NOT work properly when the lines are connected backwards. I was having oil temp issues after a reconfig of the system, so I ordered a new oilstat. When I went to install it, I noticed that the one that was in there was installed backwards (the Mocal unit is externally symmetrical, but not internally). I just installed the new one anyway, but I suspect the original was still okay and wasn't working only because it was installed backwards.

-Max