Oil cooling for road racing
 

I was thinking of hitting the track this summer. Car should be good to go, but I am worried about my lack of good oil cooling.

Car currently makes about 400whp and only has a stock single oil cooler. What is a good set-up for a street car that I would take road racing a handful of times a year? Would a stock dual set-up be enough, or should I go for a single 25 row set-up (or more)?

Thanks,
Matt

i ran 420 hp 13b on a roadcourse with the twin r1 oil coolers and the oil temps were 240 -260 . A little hot but thats a full on race pace for 1/2 to 1 hour. the good part is the thermstats are built in and its an easy instal. If thats too hot for you install a second cooler thats a bit bigger than the r1 option. I welded an an fitting to the stock cooler and oil outlet pipe to do this.

Thats good information, thanks. That's a little too hot for my tastes. Does anyone have any track numbers with a single or dual 19 or 25 row set-up?

In my FC I use a stock FC oil cooler with a lot of ducting forcing the air through the cooler. My temps are 220-230 all day for the last two years at 400 rwhp. In my opinion the ducting is key to great oil cooler performance. I have noticed a recent rise in oil temps while on the track and a quick inspection showed the stock oil cooler is starting to get pretty bent up. Many of the cooling fins are now bent over from small debris, etc. This summer I plan to replace the stock FC unit with a new one and invest in some smaller mesh to keep the rocks out.

-Trent

Where are you measuring that's giving that temp?

How experienced are you? Depending on your experience levels and how hard you are pushing, ambient temps and other factors, you might be OK. Might want to get an oil temp gauge and do some testing.

Reading old threads on this topic, oil temps seem to track coolant temps by about 20 degrees.

I know more than a few guys who do fine with dual R1 oil coolers. Granted they all have a well setup cooling system.

I know ducting would help, but I didn't think it made that much of a difference. That's pretty interesting. I have a 99 spec bumper and I can't find oil cooler ducts anywhere... may get something faricated.

I'm not experienced at all :). A track opened about 1/2 hour from me this past year and a friend and I want to start going this season. I have a Ron Davis radiator and the turbo is oil and water cooled. My water temps have been very consistent regardless of my driving, so I think my cooling system should be good. Thanks for the input.

Spend some time on Crispy's site and look for his radiator install/ducting thread:
http://www.negative-camber.org/crispyrx7/

Have fun on the track. Go as often as possible. :)

Matt,

Try here: http://www.negative-camber.org/crispyrx7/cwrcoolers.htm
There might be something useful there although the info is getting a bit dated.
FWIW.

Regards,
Crispy

Nice website (and car!) Crispy. Thanks for the great info.

It's a shame as I'm having webmaster/server issues at the moment. I have 19 pages of new information from my recent 2 year engine build "project" to upload but that I can't get to the site. :(
Soon hopefully though ....

Glad the info was useful
Regards,
Crispy

We run the rx4 cooler on our engines, pull 9000-9500 for 30 minutes and never see over 230 in the pan on a 100 degree + day. It's all about ducting and forcing the air through the cooler. We also cut off the two side tanks and got rid of all of the restriction including the thermostat, then welded on new side tanks. Of course, we run bridges and pp's not turbos, but I would start there. No oil cooler is better (in my opinion) than a Mazda cooler.

www.retroracingteam.com

The importance of ducting air to the radiator or oil cooler cannot be over stresses. A well designed duct gives the air no other choice but to go through the cooler - not around it. With well designed ducting, no fans are needed while running full throttle on the road course.

Also, well designed ducting improves downforce by only letting air necessary for cooling into the front of the car. One of my competitors, with a near identical chassis design, has his oil cooler and radiator hanging in the front of his car with no ducting. His method lets a lot of excess air enter the nose, and go around the coolers. His excess air then makes his front lift at high speed, whereas mine stays planted, giving me faster hi-speed cornering speeds.

A good reference source for cooling ducting can be found in several of Carroll Smith's books.

Anyone who is even remotely interested in driving should own (and READ!) all of Carroll Smith's books. :)