Oil Coolers

[vwmikel]

I figured maybe this might be the best place to ask everyone what they're running for oil coolers? I'm putting an S300 on an S50 and I have an S54 oil filter housing. So, now I need to decide what sort of oil cooler to use with it. After some digging in the shop all I can find is an old Racimex and a Mocal cooler, but the cores are both about 3" across. I think that's going to be too small. What other brands have people had success with? There are tons of other names out there. I don't know if I should be more or less afraid of some of the ebay-ish types. Thoughts?

[tofunin]

Setrab oil coolers if not going the OEM style under radiator mount.

[vwmikel]

Of course Setrab is a go-to. I'm looking at that cost/goodness balance though and wondering what else people might have to suggest?

[badmonkey]

Pelican (I think?) has a knock off of the euro under radiator mount style. You’ll of course want to shroud/duct it properly.. something not seen often in the FI section.

[vwmikel]

I see they have a Modine version - #17-21-2-244-084-M166

About $300 total if you buy the BMW lines. That's not too bad. And tempting. I still have the ducting mostly in-tact. The intercooler fit rather snugly in there and is only trimmed for the inlet and outlet.

[pbonsalb]

Unless you are tracking the car or live in the desert, you won’t need a cooler. I put together a cooler system while supercharged because I did have hot oil with the centrifugal dragging on the crank, but changed to a turbo shortly after and the cooler has been sitting in a box since. That was 8 years ago. Never had an issue with oil temps while turbo in street driving on my full weight car with AC.

[vwmikel]

There is always a chance it could end up back in the desert. I guess my question comes down to whether there is really an advantage to one oil cooler over another? Has anyone ever had any issues with one that leaked or had some other flaw? I realize that, like intercoolers, not all are created equal. But, there isn't an oil cooler now. Seemingly any oil cooler is an improvement so long as it doesn't cause some severe pressure drop or fail catastrophically. In the past I've usually ended up with a cooler that was designed for the car, so I've never had to map it out before.

[somebody5788]

I have compared my oil temps to my buddies 335 that has oil coolers and mine are lower than his... I am not sure how, it doesn't make much sense to me.

[chikinhed]

Your car probably is measuring oil temp from a different location than his.

I have a euro OEM oil cooler mounted below the radiator and it has been adiquate for track days. I don’t see more than about 230°F on the track. On the street it never goes higher than water temp (180°F). Badmonkey is right about the ducting and that applies to any heat exchanger. I have ducting from the bumper cover to intercooler, ac condenser, rad and oil cooler and fans. If the air can flow around a heat exchanger then it will.

[Robocop]

the correct place to measure is the sump ya?

[somebody5788]

Your car probably is measuring oil temp from a different location than his.

I have a euro OEM oil cooler mounted below the radiator and it has been adiquate for track days. I don’t see more than about 230°F on the track. On the street it never goes higher than water temp (180°F). Badmonkey is right about the ducting and that applies to any heat exchanger. I have ducting from the bumper cover to intercooler, ac condenser, rad and oil cooler and fans. If the air can flow around a heat exchanger then it will.

I believe the N55 measures it at the oil filter housing which is where mine is at (in the OEM location that was not used on E36's)