Show me your endurance racing oil cooler setups

Rexxenexx

Active member
Looking into getting an oil cooler. The one I had in the 90's was a @ 1'x1' oil cooler passenger side (battery area) with a small Spal. This was spliced into the remote oil filter hose driver side. What are your guys setups?
 

Rexxenexx

Active member
water cooled turbo might keep it cool. How much endurance are we talking here?

@ 85-95 MPH for 90 Miles

The dipstick has whips of smoke, not plumes, when I pull it out @ 1 hour + on the freeway @75 MPH driving. It for sure gets hot, coolant on the other hand is perfect 1st mark - 2mm above climbing a hill. I think a small cooler that diverts to it @ 250* would be enough. Would be neat if there was a inline Y diverter that I can put on the remote filter out. Just thinking aloud. I'm sure there's good stuff that's hard to find between the Temu pushed shit.
You guys have always been so knowledgeable and helpful thx.
 
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BMFB

Not to scale
interesting observation there, I understand the fear

The conditions you describe are normal driving. Any speed, for any amount of time of normalish highway driving shouldn't overheat your oil. That being said, it would be good to see what the temp actually is. Easiest way I can think of is to use a temp gun on the filter/lines feeding the filter up on the fender. It is possible the smoke you are seeing is water evaporating out of the oil, or smoke from blowby becoming entwined in the oil. If there are puffs of air coming out of your oil fill, it is prob the latter.

IMO oil temp is something people get skittish about too easily, at least when dealing with synthetic oils (which I gotta recommend for turbo things). Oil needs to get hot to stay clean, like 220F as the lowest operating temp. The teen years of the corvettes sorta opened my eyes to this, with their oil temps being considered good up to like 310F. Sounds extreme, (cause it is) but it helps proves to me that oil works just fine at temps like that for a while. Another thing I think i know is that oil is going to always be 20-30 degrees hotter than your coolant, so take that into consideration. If you decide to change out your tstat, be sure to look into the effects of that on the trucks computer. I cant remember for sure, but I believe the truck still believes it is warming up at those temps, and might run less good than it would hot (without tuning)

To add an oil cooler means you are adding fittings, hose and a cooler which all become potential (catastrophic) failure points. I do not recommend unless you can prove a significant need. General highway travel does not warrant such a risk.
 

QWERTYphoon

Motley Driver Award 2009
I am really glad you posted this. When you run a hot motor, a lot, a big thing you can do is change the oil, a lot. A frequent fluid change goes a long way. When oil gets really hot, it breaks down real fast. When your dipstick puffs like that, change the oil. These older motors go a long way with frequent fluid changes.
 

Rexxenexx

Active member
Sounds like it's just blow-by then. It does have some oil vapor coming through that I take port next to the IAC. I removed a filter canister I had on that hose because it was a PITA, but it was capturing a good amount.
It's about 2K since I last changed the oil. Always at 3K and always Mobile1 10W30 w Mobile1 extended life filter, I have enough for another change then next I'm gonna try the Truck SUV variant. Supposedly it's better on bearings than reg Mobile1.
 

BMFB

Not to scale
how long does it take you to put that kinda millage on it? If you have blowby, the fuely air skating past the rings is going into your crankcase, and into the oil. Fuel breaks oil down faster in these situations, and you should change it more based on time than millage. Get used to what fresh oil feels like between your fingers and what it smells like so you can get an idea of when its breaking down. When it breaks down itll smell fuelish, and when you slide your fingers together youll feel when its loosing its slickness
 

Rexxenexx

Active member
March 16th milage was 41528. Today April 16 it's 42619. But road tripping is about 300 a day sometimes.
So far it's been OK. No whisps of smoke. Oil is still clear and slippery.
It does fart a white cloud on startup oddly 1 stop after morning startup and very rarely. Once or twice a month. My other Ty when it needed valve seals farted once on 1st startup, even again on 2nd.
I changed the PCVs Oct 1st 2024 when it first started farting a white cloud to see if that would help. I thought it did because the clouds are so rare. Didn't obviously. So at some point I gotta get the seals done and hopefully that will help/solve the whisps on the dipstick you think?
 

BMFB

Not to scale
on the dipstick no, the valve seals are sorta isolated from that. Weird story though, white fart on second startup. Not loosing any coolant by chance is it?
 

Rexxenexx

Active member
Coolent is always top of both caps.

I'll give you the last two examples since I've been in this hotel 3 weeks.
1. Sometime end of March I startup the car, been sitting in parking garage since 5/6 pm day before, no smoke. Drive @ 10 min to supermarket, shop for short time (<10 min), start the car and a faint white smoke in startup.
2. Last weekend, drove from Irvine to San Clemente (@ 20 min drive). Nothing starting up at hotel parking. It sat for about 4 hours in San Clemente parking, then thick white smoke on startup.

The days since, no smoke on startup with driving about the same as the first description.
 
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BMFB

Not to scale
kinda the only thing I can think of for white puffs, oil is a distinct blue grey color. As long as it isnt disappearing your doing alright
 
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