DIY oilcooler kit for less than 200$

[AZhitman]

Yeah, 20w-50 seems awful thick for a boosted car.

My engine builder recommended 5w-15 for mine, and I still run 30-50psi of oil pressure.

[Carl H]

5w15 seems uberthin to me...i dunno tho ive ran 20w50 for a while now and it seems to like it.also sitting in southern heat tends to elevate coolant and oil temps, and when revving to 8,5k you need all the protection you can get.

[StricNyne]

carl h runs molasses heh j/k

[SeVa-S13]

carl h runs molasses heh j/k

I did the same with my 20 in the dead of summer. (Amsoil20w50)VA/NC summers =

[Bronze MFP]

My rb20 also likes the 20w50. It seems to run smoother at higher rpms with it in, and when it gets cold out, 10w40. 5w15 seems way too thin even for n/a :-/

[Darius]

Since a lot of thermostatic sandwich adapters do not have 1/8"NPT openings for gauge sending units, how would you get oil pressure readings if your sending unit was on an oil cooler line fitting? Would you have to run two sandwich adapters stacked, one for the gauge sending unit and one for the thermostatic control of the oil route?

Also, when the oil is too cold, does the thermostatic controlled sandwich allow oil to bypass the cooler and go through the filter or does it shut down oil passage all-together like a thermostat for engine coolant? Little fuzzy on this...

[gawdzilla]

is your current oil pressure sender setup through a sandwich plate? if so, you may have to move it to the factory dummy light/factory pressure sender location, which is where mine is. i plan on keeping the factory oil to water cooler too, even though deleting it would probably be cleaner.

the thermo sandwich plate won't affect flow (hot or cold) to the oil filter. it only restricts flow to the oil cooler when the oil is cold. even in that case i think some oil still bypasses and goes through the cooler.

[Shocker]

thanks for bumping this thread Darius, now I don't need to look for it. Thats not sarcasum either.

Carl can you post a pic up of your front bumper. I'm curious to see how you did it for flow to the cooler.

[Darius]

No prob Shocker. I just stumbled across it last night as I'm gauging what I need and what I want for this winter's upgrades and finding what I can actually spend. Sucks not being rich and only paying $300/month in rent anymore.

gawdzilla- Thanks for the clarification on the thermo sandwich. I'm currently just running the stock water-to-oil cooler without any sandwich plate. And in the future, I was thinking of disconnecting the stock oil cooler and going with an air-to-oil cooler, like Carl has shown us here, to take some of the heat off of the rest of the engine cooling system.

[gawdzilla]

the difference between the 20 and the 25/26 is that the 20 doesnt come with an oem oil to water cooler, so there is nothing to delete in carl's case when adding an air to oil cooler. for the 25/26, you can delete the oem cooler by looping the water lines to the cooler, or by buying the 20's block adapter w/o the oem cooler( the 3 or 4 bolt piece with the paper gasket that bolts onto the block and holds the oil filter) and loop the water lines. On the 25/26, the block adapter has the cooler on it.

OR you can leave the oem cooler there and just run it as is and stick the thermo sandwich to that, like i plan to. not going to hurt it any IMO.. might even help get the oil to operating temps faster, who knows..
Modified by gawdzilla at 12:02 PM 12/5/2007

[l0nestar]

Carl can you post a pic up of your front bumper. I'm curious to see how you did it for flow to the cooler.

Hopefully there are some older pics of it, because it got smashed right before we went to the F1 race back in *June*?

Does this look vaguely familiar?


Modified by l0nestar at 10:46 PM 12/5/2007

[l0nestar]

Darius,

gawdzilla is correct (at least in regards to the GReddy thermostatic sandwich plate / adapter). It restricts flow until the oil begins to warm up, then begins relieving the restriction (letting more oil flow through). It does not 'bypass' the oil cooler until it is warmed up, then BAM cold oil. It tries to slowly mix the cooler oil so it is not a shock of adding cold oil to a hot engine.

Because we all remember that _cold_ oil can be as damaging as extra hot oil...

Helps, yes?Clear as mud?

[Darius]

Perfect! Thanks guys!

[nizmo zilvia]

So does this do more harm than good? Reading your post makes me think twice.

[Coolwhip]

no, it just regulates it from going to either extreme.

your safe

[nizmo zilvia]

Just making sure.

[duffman1278]

So far so good on the oilcooler, keep us updated

[Carl H]

unfortunately i do not have a picture of the front bumper with the oil cooler in place but it was plainly visable thru the side of the fog light...

ive since decided to go with this thermoplate:this is the greddy plate...and has a much nicer build quality than the mocal i had; about 10$ more than the mocal unit.it has 4 ports to choose from for oil line routing to the cooler and 2 remaining ports for temp or pressure...

the thermo plates are designed to bleed oil thru the cooler to not only keep oilpressure up but as to also keep the oil temp in the cooler about the same as in the motor, so as lonestar said to not shock the system with cold oil.

[nizmo zilvia]

+1 for 240sxmotoring being local to me :P

[Shocker]

+1 for 240sxmotoring being local to me :P

Looks like I'll be purchasing one in the next couple weeks here. I just dont know what im going to do about my stock chuki bumper... I'd hate to cut it.... I like the lowered stock sleepy look.... hmm. ideas anyone?

[nizmo zilvia]

dunno. why cant you use the chuki bumper? does it not allow enough room or something?

[Shocker]

dunno. why cant you use the chuki bumper? does it not allow enough room or something?

not much of an opening for air....

[nizmo zilvia]

Im sure anywhere you put it in your engine bay and it facing towards the ground you'll get air. Or put it somewhere and create a duct for it.

[Shocker]

Im sure anywhere you put it in your engine bay and it facing towards the ground you'll get air. Or put it somewhere and create a duct for it.

Im sure I'll figure it out. Most likely I'll duct from my little black hole things under my marker lights and bring some air in that way. Although it looks cooler when you can see the oil cooler.. So racey.

[Kansei240sx]

That rocks carl. I have the greddy oil cooling unit i picked up from RHD japan for around 250-ish back when the summer cooling sale was going on. Oh my gosh, the oil cooler is probably the best cooling mod i've done so far. The oil temps stay stable, and they're almost TOO low. I run Royal Purple 10w30 if i remember right, either that or is 5w30. Ill have some more pics up here in a second actually mounted to the car.

I do need however, a greddy oil temp and pressure gauge.

One of the biggest differences i noticed with not having the stock cooler anymore was the lack of an enormous amount of heat under my intake manifold heat soaking the crap out of it. The engine just seems happier altogether with it.

[Shocker]

good to know!

[HxC_Nismo]

so with this oil cooler kit does it get rid of the stock oil to water cooler or does it still keep that and just run an additional air to oil cooler on top of that?

[Cameron]

lol i had to do this with all the oil starvation talk going on lately..

[nizmo zilvia]

Wow you got a great deal on that. Right now they have the same kit for $367 shipped.

What application did you get that for? S13/S14 or RB?

[Coolwhip]

does the Greddy sandwich come with the 1/8NPT fitting for a gauge sensor? or do you need to buy the fitting seperatly?