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Re:TR oil cooler

To: british-cars@autox.team.net, cak@dimebank.com
Subject: Re:TR oil cooler
From: bownes@lucas.emi.com (R.M. Bownes III)
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 19:32:15 +0500
->
->You can buy all the pieces you need to make up the lines from Dave Bean
->Engineering, among others. TRF sells complete kits that are probably quite
->nice. If you want to buy individual pieces (most of this stuff is cast by
->Mocal and just resold/repackaged) I highly recommend BAT Industries in
->Florida; they seem to be a direct Mocal importer and know what they're
->talking about.
->
->A new bit of technology is using an oil-to-water intercooler; the theory
->here is that the radiator has enough cooling capacity to cool the engine,
->so using some of that capacity to cool the oil directly instead of by
->conduction through the block is a win. I don't know of any off-the-shelf
->setups that will work for our cars, but I could imagine taking an oil
->cooler adapter and doing a little custom plumbing into the water pump or
->heater return line (hmm, some problems there) and having a neat
->installation.
->

I did this on my race Spit. the oil/water cooler from a VW vanagon is a
direct fit, but requires that you either make an adaptor/extender (on
the Spit at least) from the (I think these sizes are right) 3/8" thread
on your block to either a 3/8 for a Spit filter *or* a 1/2" thread for
a larger filter. I then plumbed it in where the heater used to be.
There is no reason you couldn't put it inline with the heater hoses.
The problem is the source of these parts. Get one from a breakers yard
as the part new from VW is $178.00 last I checked, but about $10 from a
junkyard.


My current thinking, however is a little different. I think that in the
next incarnation, I will use a remote oil filter adaptor, which will
allow me to put the cooler inline with the filter, put the filter in a
position to remain full, and (important in the race car) put the
accusump upstream (and behind a check valve) of the filter. The
accusump, for those who've never heard of such a device, holds 3 quarts
of Castrol's Finest under pressure and feeds it to the oil system if
the oil pressure drops below a pre-determined point. Quite the ticket
if you go around turns at high lateral G's very often.



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