How To: Build Your Own Oil Cooler

[rico05]

Step 1: Read This Entire How ToSo, you want to build an oil cooler, but don’t want to pay $800 for a Blitz one? Don’t trust the $300 eBay special? Then build your own. All it takes is some patience, some cash, and a Summit parts magazine. The basic idea is simple: add a front mounted, in line air cooler to the cars oiling system. This is both an easy task, as minimal parts are needed, but it can also destroy your motor if you do not attach everything properly or you do not tighten everything down well. Enough with the schpeil, let’s get to the how to.

Step 2: Spend Some MoneyI got the basic idea from Al in his thread on a remote oil filter kit (http://www.houston240sx.com/fo...r+kit). All of the parts are readily available from most parts warehouses, but since I ordered from Summit, I will be posting their parts numbers for easy copying of my kit. Head over to http://www.summitracing.com and get your credit card handy.

1. -10 Russell stainless steel hose RUS-632180 Now this comes with a caveat. This is the $91 15’ length. I have about 5’ left. Buy the ~$60 10’ length.2. Block adapter plate w/ ½” NPT inlet/outlet TRD-10133. Single filter adapter w/ ½” NPT inlet/outlet TRD-10284. -10 to ½” NPT adapter fittings RUS-660500 Get 6 of them5. -10 A/N straight hose ends RUS-610040 Get 3 of them6. 90^ -10 A/N hose ends RUS-610180 Get 3 of them7. Cooler. Ok, here is where you have to make your decision. I went for a 26 row, 6”x11” B&M. Cost me roughly $60. You can go bigger, or you can go smaller. There are ones with fans, and ones that are bar and plate or tube and fin. For my kit, all that matters is that you get a cooler with ½” NPT inlet/outlet. If you choose a different one with a different size inlet and outlet, make sure that you purchase 2 less of the -10 to ½” NPT fittings, and get -10 A/N to X fittings. My cooler is part number BMM-70273 (BMM-702272 is 11”x11” FYI)8. Oil filter. I took the filter plate into NAPA and said “Here”. What I got was a NAPA Gold 1515 for a late model Chevy pickup. It is HUGE. Once finished, I had a leak at both fittings on the filter plate. The stuff leaking out of the feed (from the galley) was blackish, the oil out of the filter was pure synthetic gold. This filter works!!

Total cost: $287.33 (not including, filter, oil, and mounting hardware)

Step 2: Measure and Cut Ok, another decision needs to be made. You need to pick where to mount the cooler and oil filter adapter. I chose to mount the cooler to the face of my radiator. You may want it in the front wing (inner fender), or out in front of the bumper ala old school JDM tyte method. The choice is yours.

Here you need to cut the braided hose to the correct length. The hose will be about 1.5” inside the hose ends when assembled, so measure your exact lengths and add 3” to the overall length. Cutting braided hose is NOT FUN. Wear gloves. Even one strand can lay you open like nobody’s business. What worked for me was to measure the length with a heater hose (easier to bend, and equal in outside diameter to the braided hose) then used electrical tape, TIGHTLY stretched, to mark cutting location on the braided hose. Now, use a cut off wheel or a Dremel to cut in the middle of the tape. The tape is there to keep the strands from fraying. Now, after cutting, the tape is very frayed and possibly melted (side note, the braided hose is VERY easy to cut with a 12k RPM Dremel), so I removed the left over tape.

Then, VERY carefully, I rewrapped the end as tight as I could with more electrical tape to be sure that the ends were perfectly round and unfrayed. Leave the tape in place for the next step.

Here are my measurements. REMEMBER that mine is mounted in front of the radiator! If you go for a sidemount, the hoses will be considerably (~1’) longer!!!

From engine block plate to oil filter relocation plate (USDM passenger side fender mounted): 6”Filter to cooler, cooler to engine block: 2x 46”

Ok, get your forearms ready!!!

Step 3: Adding FittingsA/N end fittings are 2 piece compression fittings. Consider that a high temp, high pressure viscous fluid will be passing through these. Remember, there is no tight enough. These need to be as tight as you can humanly make them. Imagine romping on your car at an AutoX or drift day and suddenly losing all oil and pressure. Bye-bye bearings.

Ok, there is a trick to this. I figured it out myself after 5-6 tries, but it works.

Disassemble the fitting. It will look like this:

The narrow side of the red piece slides over the end of the braided hose. It is threaded inside, so screw the hose until it reaches the second set of threads. There is a lip on the inside of the fitting where you should stop.

Now, simply push the blue fitting into place. Notice that it is tapered? The taper should just slide into the inside of the rubber hose (very little force is needed) From here, begin screwing it into place. This blue fitting smashes the hose between the threads of the blue fitting and the “wall” of the red fitting.

Tighten the fittings together by hand, making sure that the hose does not back out of the red fitting. Now, if you left the electrical tape in place, everything will slide together nicely, and as you tighten the red fitting, the threads will actually strip the electrical tape off. If you are entering a car show, use a knife to remove the tape boogers that will come out of the bottom of the fitting once tight. Once again, use either A/N wrenches (up to $100 a set) or 2 crescent wrenches to tighten the blue fitting as tight as possible. No threads on the blue fitting should be seen! The 6” gets a straight -10 A/N hose end on each end, where as the cooler feed from the filter gets one 90^ at each end, and the return gets one 90^, and one straight end.

Now, remember those 6 -10A/N to ½” NPT fittings? Go ahead and install them. They go in the filter plate, the engine block plate, and the cooler itself. In my research, I found that threadlock on the hose end fittings is not needed, but here it is. I used Permatex Green Penetrating formula, as it is designed for preassembled aluminum fittings. Simply put a light coat on each fitting, and screw into the cooler, and both plates until tight.

If you did all of this correctly, everything will be free of leaks and ready to rock! Now, comes the fun part!

Step 4: InstallationGet the front of the car in the air, pull the drain plug and filter, and let it sit for as long as you can stand. I used zip ties to mount the cooler. I went to Target and got a little box of machining nuts and bolts and some washers for the oil filter plate. This is kind of up to you. Mount the filter higher than the oil pan, and you are fine. Now, we need to have a little discussion here. Inside the filter, there is a valve that keeps pressure from building inside the filter until there is actual fluid inside it. This means, that on startup, the filter will act as a safety mechanism keeping oil pressure from dropping as the pump tries to fill the empty lines. Instead, it will allow pressure to build behind the filter (in the engine) protecting your bearings. Now, that means that you don’t have to mount the filter upside down, but can actually mount it upwards, adding bling, cooling the filter, and making it very easy to change. Now, because pressure via a vacuum will build in the filter, when you go to remove it, the vacuum will be broken, spilling the oil contents from the filter. Simply drill or punch a small hole in the top of the filer before draining. This little trick is per the advice of a local open road racer (he runs a C4 Vette in the Big Bend Open).

Now, the rest is pie. Simply screw on the fittings till tight. Well, it is not all that simple. I cut my lines so that there is as little slack as possible. REMEMBER: these are highly machined fittings. Make for damn sure that you have the threads lined up right, and do not tighten down until you do so, as the aluminum threads will cross easily, ruining a $10+ fitting!! You need to make sure that you have the feed and return plumbed correctly, or NO OIL PRESSURE WILL BUILD. Without a proper gauge, you could totally miss this, going for a test run, and getting towed home with rod knock. The flow goes into the “outside” of the filter, through the element, and returns to the oil gallery through the large diameter hole in the middle. Here are some pics to show hose routing.

The inlet to the block from the cooler is the one that is more centered, seen here as the left most one. The one on the right is the feed to the filter. The same is true for the filter plate. The inlet to the filter is the hole that feeds the outer ring of the filter, out to the cooler is in the center of the plate.

Ok, once everything is plumbed, make sure that all fittings are tight. Also, make sure that the block plate is as tight as can be. Sport Compact Car added one of these to Project Silvia, and on the test run, leaked oil from the filter block off plate. Also, remember that these lines will be transporting hot oil, so keep them away from any sensors or wiring. For the CA that I installed this on, oil capacity is around 4-4.5q now (standard is ~3.3q). Math shows that the lines should hold around 3/4q, the cooler should hold ½q, and who knows about the filter. Just buy 2 extra quarts, put the car back on the ground, fill, and check when warm. Check that all lines are warm. Check for leaks, and carry a wrench with you for your first few drives (my leaks were at the oil filter plate). Everything checks out ok, hit the track and forget about oil temps!!!

Final Thoughts:Ok, ok, ok…a lot of folks are going to complain about no thermostat being in my kit. Sure, if you live in upstate New York, and you want to have an oil cooler installed in January you want a thermostat. Well, something tells me you are not going to competitively drive your car in January in upstate New York, but if you did, you would warm it up anyway. I live in Tejas, so I decided to skip the thermostat. Why? Because as I write this, it is January and I am wearing shorts today. I do not have an oil temp gauge yet, so no info on oil temp, but as long as the little bugger is doing its job, I am happy. I cannot stress how tiring it is to build the lines. Measuring, cutting, and adding fittings is no fun, but once you have done it, you can do it again….for someone else…for profit. I could be swayed to build this kit as a kit for sale, but at a cost of nearly $300, and the labor needed to make the kit, expect costs over $350, so I bet no one would buy one. However, if you do have any questions, comments, concerns, or rants, email me at: [email protected]



If you need this is PDF, I have it hosted on my website:http://people.tamu.edu/~rico05/Tech/Oil_Cooler.pdf
Modified by rico05 at 9:49 AM 4/2/2006

[AZhitman]

WOW!

Article material!

Whatcha want for your "custom title", rico?

BTW, I will be following this step by step when I install my built KA-t!

[One_Love]

wow rico. way to go. Looks like you worked hard on the article. And i say this for everyone here, Thank you for your article.

[nvrplzd240]

And i say this for everyone here, Thank you for your article.

i completely agree.

this article ROCKS!!!

thanks man

[rico05]

Not a problem guys. And Greg, I trust your titling skillz.

Kepp your eyes peeled for more How Tos when I get more time.

[jamied311]

awesome!

[RB20DETodd]

Nice write up, also this

u...46456

[kouki-gymkhana]

Awesome write-up! I've been looking to install a cooler for my RB for quite some time, I think I have an old oil cooler core lying around somewhere but now I know how to put the fittings together! Awesome! Mods, please sticky this article.

[Slipstream]

You Rock!

[JesusLikesKFC]

damn thatsa very nice... i like.... yakshimash. but yea i think im gonna make one, just gonna figure out where to mount but damn that look clean as hell. bring out the sexness of the ca.

[le_ryan]

SWEET!but that looks like its gonna make a mess when you change the oil.Mabey mount it the other way so oil doesnt go evrywhere.Great job dude

[sileighty85]

great write up. this should be a sticky.

[thekawaii]

non termostatic?

[AZhitman]

SWEET!but that looks like its gonna make a mess when you change the oil.Mabey mount it the other way so oil doesnt go evrywhere.Great job dude

You didn't read the part about piercing the filter to release the vacuum - there won't be any oil in the filter when you remove it.

SO COOL!!!

[AZhitman]

Not a problem guys. And Greg, I trust your titling skillz.

Kepp your eyes peeled for more How Tos when I get more time.

Rico - I meant your title under your name...

Man, great job - Well done.

[HashiriyaS14]

Fantastic write-up. I'll be doing this, but you can bet that I'll be mounting mine on the outside, lol.

[le_ryan]

You didn't read the part about piercing the filter to release the vacuum - there won't be any oil in the filter when you remove it.

SO COOL!!!

woops! i just caught that, and after reviewing my post it looked like i was saying " great job dude " in a sarchastic way.but i was really saying great job

[rico05]

Now the whole punch a hole thing has yet to be tried out by me...so if someone makes a mess, not my fault, LOL I chose not to run a thermo b/c #1 I have a CA, which means my cold start does not work (LOL) so I have to let her warmup for a few minutes before I drive anyway and #2 I live in a warm state, so not as much need for one as for someone living up north.

Greg: Title under my name? Like where it says "Twin T51Rs..."?

[nismofly]

yep, theyre giving people custom names for writing articles

good info though, ill be needing one

[rico05]

That is pretty pimp. I think "I pwn" is what I would like.

[masticatingcow]

Write up added to Install/Writeups Sticky on this forum, though I'm sure this information would be useful for ALL cars (not just the 240sx).

Nice job, rico!

[GhostDriver]

Rico, your even more JDM now!!lol

All kidding aside, you did an awesome job on that oil cooler install and the write up is really choice. Much kudos...

.

[240Knightrider]

or you can just buy one for less than $100http://store.summitracing.com/...w=sku

http://www.qmrmotorsports.com/...a7...

http://www.truckperformance.co...Kits/

[rico05]

All with smaller, less efficent cores and rubber hoses. If you want to be cheap, build model cars.

[fiznat]

Greg: Title under my name? Like where it says "Twin T51Rs..."?

lol yeah Rico, check this thread out (stickied in Gen Chat): zer...age=1

Yours is a very nice article, so you get to make your own custom user title (yes, where it says "twin T51Rs..."). Whatever you want, within reason

Congratulations, and thanks for the writeup!

[sr20-thoj]

greatt write up dude.. looks niceee.. im gonna go try that out.. thanks ddude..

[EstoMax]

AWESOME writeup.

i totally absolutely needed this because im turboing my KA and an oil cooler is gonna have to be in the picture

thanksMarko

[rico05]

See, and people say english degrees are a waste of time

[karmakaze]

sticky!!

[chmercer]

um not to hate but there are better ways to do this for cheaper

if you live in a cold climate you will want to get a filter base with a thermostat, like this http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...ZWDVWso that your oil can get up to operating temperature, otherwise if its cold you will **** your motor up unless you are running like 0w20. the thermostat only sends oil to the cooler at around 160 degrees, instead of pumping 40 degree 20w50 through an air cooler and not coating anything in your engine and giving you wicked knock.

the thermostat can either be used as a sandwich plate (place it between your oil filter and oil filter landing on the block, this lets you keep the filter in the stock location and have an inlet/outlet for the oil cooler lines) or if you want to relocate the filter as well, you thread the thermostat onto the relocated filter landing and plug the relocated landing's inlet/outlet ports. then thread the filter onto the thermostat. the way i typed this is kindof convoluted, let me know if anyone wants me to clarify.

next you obviously need a filter sandwitch and/or a relocation landing. these are commonly available on ebay and are billet aluminum (the cast aluminum ones from jegs and stuff crack VERY easily) and use 8an ports instead of pipe thread. these bases also include additional ports for oil pressure sensors and stuff. the ones on ebay come with some extra AN fittings and stuff, you can use them if you want, i wouldnt.

so now you have your base and filter landing, now you need your hoses. you can either use 8an line (not reccomended) or 8an to 10an adapter fittings (ok i guess) or what i will be doing is tapping the aluminum base for 10an fittings. using adapter fittings kindof bottlenecks the flow and its a waste of money also because you have to buy more adapter fittings and crap. also you want to keep away from using pipe thread fittings in cars as much as you can, they seal on the thread instead of the tapered end, which is why you have to use stupid teflon tape on them, AN fittings do not require teflon tape.

ok so lets pretend you tapped your filter base for 10an fittings, if you didnt you can just get 8an to 10an male adapter fittings from baker or jegs or whatever. if you dont tap out the thermostat and bases, you will need 4 adapter fittings.

so now you need hoses and a cooler. again the best place to buy these is off ebay. stainless hose and reusable fittings are deffinitley not the best for oil. stainless hose is rated for like a million PSI and there is basically no point in using it in a low pressure application like motor oil transfer, where you will likley never see over 100psi in normal usage. most braided rubber hose included with the cheaper oil relocation kits is good for 300psi, which is perfectly fine. the best hose to use for oil transfer in a generally low temp low pressure situation like this is going to be kevlar aramid braided smooth bore hose. aeroquip startlite hose, goodridge XF 910 are both hoses that fit this description. im sure icore also has a aramid hose like this, i dont know what its called. so kevlar braided hose. ok cool, now for fittings. the "home assembly" type hose ends arent too great, what you want are crimp on fittings, aluminum. here is a hose off ebay that fits the description. these types of hoses are very commonly available. 4 ft long, icore kevlar hose, aluminum crimp fittings, 45 degree 10an swivel female. 20 bucks. this hose would cost $123.90 + shipping if you purchased it new at baker, so you can see why it makes no sense to buy them new.but yeah to reiterate, braided hose makes no sense to use for an oil cooler, braided hose is better for brakelines, power steering and other high pressure stuff. also on thoes applications you would want to use steel fittings, not aluminum, aluminum will crack/burst (power steering can get up to 12-1500 psi on the pressure side)

ok so theres your hose, now you need a cooler. look for a cooler with 10an male inlets, this way you dont have to run more goofy adapters, also there is less chance of leaks. if you cant find a 10an one, try to find a 12an one and adapt it for 10, using a cooler with 8an fittings and adapting it for 10 is OK but again bottlenecking the flow with adapter fittings is kindof stupid. if all you can find is 8an, try to get some 10an male fittings welded onto the end tanks in place of the 8s if you have a local hotrod shop or somthing. just for example, i got a 5.5x11x2 setrab core with 8an fittings (using it for a power steering cooler so 10an wouldve been too large, 10 or 12an is better for motor oil) for 50 bucks. setrab, mocal, modine, fluidyne, long, b&m, c&r, etc etc. are all good oil coolers. try to stay away from the ones with the mandrel tubes running through a bunch of metal fins, you want the kind that looks like a baby radiator.

i think thats everything?