Oil cooler help needed
Turbo Mini Forums

Hello,

Roughly 10 months ago I bought an 'oil cooler' take off from someone off the tinternet, i have ran the sandwich plate on several other old cars I've done so this was no difference. All this time later, I have unwrapped the thing and from what i can gather its not a sandwich plate but has a water feed which cools the oil before it goes into the cooler via the bulbous chamber ( see photos)

My questions are

1. Are they any good?? Looking at the volume I wouldn't expect much cooling but I'm unsure how much cooling the a series turbo engine needs?? If any???

2. Any idea what if came from??

I have looked around the Internet but with no success

Cheers

David

tried to post via my i phone, but would not let me upload the photos.

here they are.







Thank you

Edited by mossy2a on 26th Jan, 2012.

hi there david no pics iam afraid ?

any cooling water oil cooler will place additional strain an an over burdend cooling system on a mini......especially
turbo charged
a 6 row oil cooler air oil cooler is all thats needed for fast road work on a turbo charged mini

13 row on a hard worked track motor

as a note for you:-

best oil temp for power with the oil in the sump is
100 deg C my engine only comes up to 80c with a 13 row with 6 rows exposed and the rest taped up.

hope this helps

any ideas where the things from??

i have a 6 row oil cooler and pipe ready to fit, i unwrapped the thing and was like 'oh' what the f@@k is this thing.

better try and find a sandwich plate then.

Benross do you run an oil thermostat??

this is off an early MG metro
i would not use it on a mini due to the above i have mentioned

use an air to oil cooler try
merlin motorsport.co.uk

As mentioned i have got an air to oil 6 row cooler. I was hoping the item i had bought was simply a replacement with sandwich plate, obviously not, off to ebay it will go.

Cheers

If you're running a front mounted radiator this is a very good idea. As Bneross say, it puts additional strain on the water cooling system, but then make sure that this copes. Great idea and extremely easy to install.

No Mini needs a 13 row oil cooler. Just ignorance make people fit this.

Get yourself an oil temperature gauge and then see what you need.

We had one of them on the van. it heated the coolant up too much, then as a result just made the oil hotter. Took it of and things improved greatly.

my plan was to run the 6 row oil cooler, decent side mount rad with auxillary electric fan. and also run an oilstat upstream of the oil cooler so not to run the oil too cool, mocal do an 80ºC oilstat which should do the trick. should of looked better at the photos of what i was buying. dont know if i have the room for any more gauges in the dash or the electric to run them all. may have to fork out for a trendy digital gauge if i can find one.

Thanks for the replys

David

You oil needs to be warmer than 80 degrees. 95 - 105 iirc.

I have a 13 row oil cooler that came with my engine, you think I should just tape it up so only 6 rows are showing?

As Benross says, off the early MG Metro (I've got an identical one from the MG Metro I scrapped).

Pros and cons already mentioned about the heat load but one point about installation if you use it..... with the standard oil filter screwed on it will foul the subframe in a Mini because it moves the filter both further forward and further down.

Or at least it did on mine when I trial fitted it.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

The best advice is to fit an oil temp gauge and see if you actually need a cooler.