Can someone please explain to me the purpose of an Oil Cooler? (apart from the obvious)

They look like mini intercooler's, but is there a benifit to having one fitted?

Costing start from £40, is it worth investing in one? Any pirticular one to look out for?

Sam

 

depends on how u drive to wot temp yr oil gets to

 

I have an STi one but it came fitted from the factory

Tony

 

i have a oil filter sleeve with fins on it. its from my old axgt is there any point fitting it to the wrx or do they do nothing? surely it will shed some heat? does anyone else use one?

 

Would it not be sensible to spend around £60 on an oil temperature guage to see what temperatures your oil is actually getting to and then you can decide if you actually need to go to the trouble of fitting a cooler.
Various oil companies say their oils are stable up to 140 deg C. With enthusiastic track work on the warmest summer days, on highly modified engines, getting to 125 deg C can take determination, so many cars may not benefit from an oil cooler.

 

There can be more problems from fitting an oil cooler. Your oil will take an age to get up to temp and may not get to the right pressure fast enough for protection. There's also the problem of oil changes - how do you empty the cooler each time without taking a hose off?

F

 

Thanks guys..think i wil invest in a Oil Temp gauge then go from there...

 

The problem with added on oil coolers is - that nobody ever takes them off, flushes them out, flushes out the pipes etc. Thus when you do an oil change you will have best part of a litre of dirty oil still in the system.

If you do behave conscientiously you will need to prefill the cooler AND the pipes AND the oil filter in your oil pressure priming routine BEFORE starting the engine. Messy? Yes! Necessary to do? YES

AND should you be unlucky enough to suffer engine failure the oil cooler and piping becomes an immediate throw away item.

As Harvey says; there is little likelihood of you needing an oil cooler unless you drive like a bank robber all day, every day in a hot climate.

David APi Engines / APi lmpreza

 

Guys I have also been thinking about getting an extra oil cooler fitted to my Sti 8 in the front grill area, after reading that my oil temp went up to 115 / 125 ( Defi BF's ) whilst driving around the Nurburgring ? is this normal ? my oil temp sender is screwed in the back of the sump bolt. If this is OK , then I also do not need to buy an oil cooler.

Thank you for any replies

regards "MADDOG"

 

i had a cav turbo with an oil cooler on and it had engine failure due to melted pistons, the oil cooler wasnt changed and when we swapped the exchange engine over small fragments of metal kept blocking up the oil pump cause they aluminium and it was under warranty with some garage they replaced engine again and we put new oil cooler on