Oil Cooler (tons of info enclosed)

[Shaun]

So i just finished a few fairly major mods to my car and it gave me the opportunity to remove the headers and properly install the Improved Racing thermostatic oil cooler adapter. Its a great piece of gear and id recommend it to anyone. Previously i thought the LHS knock sensor and engine mount would get in the way, but it was just very difficult to access that area with the longer extractors in situ. With these removed it was very easy and didnt require lengthening of the oil cooler lines either. The pics may not be that good as they were too big and i had to resize them. Anyway, hopefully you get the idea.....


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[Shaun]

Also, there appeared to be some interest in my VE Commodore Sportwagon, so ill upload some pics of that as well. I just installed a Pat G cam with Comp springs, pushrods and titanium retainers, Lunati tie bar lifters, Yella Terra roller rockers, oil pump and Harrop 2300 FDFI supercharger. The car made 415Kw and 806Nm of torque at 7psi. As ive got an 8 month old, i had to make it fairly subdued. Its got a nice lope on idle and can be driven easily everyday by my missus if necessary. All hell breaks loose when you dump the clutch though....

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[Shaun]

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[Shaun]

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[-Ray-]

Looks sweet Shaun! Thanks for bumping this thread. I'm going to buy the Lingenfelter adapter to supply my turbo oil, and a cooler later if needed.

[toedrag]

Excellent! I'm glad to see the Improved Racing adapter worked.

Am drooling over your car, Shaun. Love the picture w/your child on the SC!

[Shaun]

Thanks guys. Im now using the 1/8npt port in the Improved Racing adapter for an oil pressure sender. Im really happy with the oil cooler setup now.

Her name is Bella and she's the cutest thing ever! She loves watching me work in the garage and just started saying Dada, Dada.

[toedrag]

Ran across some other options for Oil Temp monitoring that I wish I had known earlier. It involves using *just* an indicator light instead of a gauge. These days, I'm leaning toward the notion that an oil temperature gauge is kind of a waste of space. Meaning, I don't see the point of having a gauge give me constant updates on the oil temperature. Instead, I just need to know when it's too cold or too hot.

The simplest way is to buy an oil temperature switch, which is nothing more than an oil temp sender with a predefined temperature level where the switch is activated and it turns on the warning light. There are pressure switches as well. For example, you can find full kits at various parts suppliers (e.g. Summit Racing warning light kits) with the sender/switch & light or you can buy the them separately (Summit Racing warning light senders). These kits are in the range of $20-$40. Sooo, you buy an oil temp switch that trips at 275F, wire up the warning light, and either temporarily or permanently attach the light to the dash somewhere, and you're done. I feel pretty dumb for buying the $250 Aeroforce gauge a while back.

[STL_G8GT]

Ran across some other options for Oil Temp monitoring that I wish I had known earlier. It involves using *just* an indicator light instead of a gauge. These days, I'm leaning toward the notion that an oil temperature gauge is kind of a waste of space. Meaning, I don't see the point of having a gauge give me constant updates on the oil temperature. Instead, I just need to know when it's too cold or too hot.

The simplest way is to buy an oil temperature switch, which is nothing more than an oil temp sender with a predefined temperature level where the switch is activated and it turns on the warning light. There are pressure switches as well. For example, you can find full kits at various parts suppliers (e.g. Summit Racing warning light kits) with the sender/switch & light or you can buy the them separately (Summit Racing warning light senders). These kits are in the range of $20-$40. Sooo, you buy an oil temp switch that trips at 275F, wire up the warning light, and either temporarily or permanently attach the light to the dash somewhere, and you're done. I feel pretty dumb for buying the $250 Aeroforce gauge a while back.

Good info Toedrag, thank you!

[toedrag]

Oh, and one more point...if you can't find a sender switch in the proper thread size & pitch for your application, you can always buy a 'normal' sender in the thread size & pitch you need, but the tradeoff is that you'd need to add some custom circuitry to control the warning light. You could keep the circuit simple by just using a resistor or two between the sender wire and 12V and/or GND (which is likely what the full kits are doing). It would require a tiny bit of easy math to figure out what size resistor(s) to use. The only real downside is that the light may flicker if it's near your desired temperature/pressure threshold. If it flickers and if it's bothersome to you, you can eliminate it by adding some additional circuitry to create multiple thresholds, aka hysteresis.