Aardwolf

I removed the stock oil cooler/warmer, put on a B&M stacked plate air cooler and was amazed that oil temps plummeted thirty degrees!

I did a test drive, 90° ambient, and only got 160° oil temp.

With the stock unit my coolant temp was typically 185° and oil 195°. The separate air/oil cooler was simple to plumb. I'm curious to see what temps will be like tracking the car. Here's a picture, the cooler on the right (passenger side) is for the trans, I'm still using the stock radiator.

shakedown067

That's sharp!

Aardwolf

Cost was under $100 and the work was easy to do. I don't have a track event till the end of August so no track data till then. I normally got around 250° oil temp. I used an oil filter adapter from Summit, 1/2" hose, and the B&M cooler. The lines were easy to run (make sure they don't rest on the sway bar).

Kanmer

More detailed pics please. We have a 96 LT4 that runs really high oil temps. We need to put a cooler in. Any further details would be appreciated.

Thanks
Bob

Kubs

Andrew,

I did the same thing to mine last year (pretty sure I have the exact same cooler too). When I removed the AC I put the oil cooler in and what a huge difference!! I dont have numbers on my gauges (newer dash) but street driving the needle barley moves off the lowest peg and I have never seen them go beyond the midway point. The max is 280F for oil so its around 200 I would say track temps. I tend to follow close to cars in front of me too and it never gets hot.

The factory setup was horrible. I could only get 5 laps, then take a couple cool down laps, then go hard again, then cool.... It was horrible. I can go 20-30 min of straight hard lapping without having to worry about temps.

Kubs

Ill see if I can get pics of mine tonight too to help you out.

Aardwolf

NP for more details, what would you like? I'm not sure what cooler is on the '96 LT4. I believe they did away with this cooler/warmer and it has nothing.

I was able to get the adapter on with two crescent wrenches but it was a pain. I bought an 1 1/8" socket for it.

I used 10' of this hose with hose barb fittings and hose clamps:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-220786/

Oil filter adapter:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HDA-211/

B&M cooler 5.750"x11x1.5" (the 10"x11" is priced nicely[8"x11"1.5" pictured on the right in my picture above for comparison]):
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/BMM-70273/

Picture of routing under the PS pump, your LT4 may be different.



Lines come up and through the shroud (canister is the redesigned PS system):



Pictures of the nose (removed the skid bars):



Added a PS cooler.

The brackets are Z shaped pieces of flat stock. Then I used those screw clips left from the interior.

BrianCunningham

pun intended

Can you give us more detail on the PS setup

Mine likes to vomit all over my optispark engine

Kubs

Did you also remove the evap canister? How did you route your vacuum lines?

Aardwolf

Sure! My idea was to move the reservoir away from the radiator and having hot air blown on it. I also switched to an aluminum canister which is round. It holds more fluid, swirls the fluid around, and is aluminum rather than plastic. I got it on Ebay for $25. I used hose like above except in 3/8" size.

There is a natural gap in the nose right under the can, so it gets air. I don't like air blowing up in the nose for aero reasons so I may change how it gets air. You can see in pix above I was going about riveting sections closed.

The PS pulley I drilled holes in so it's easy to remove, this may also let the pump get more air flow. At the rack I cut a stock line then flared the end of it to use with a hose clamp. It was nice to use a section of the stock line because it has a bent part to turn over the sway bar.

The cooler was super easy to mount, I just drilled and tapped threads in the K frame.

When I was talking to Turn One they stated the fluid shouldn't exeed 250°. I am going to take a thermometer to my next track event, dip it, and see where it's at. Maybe you can too, and we can compare how each system does. I didn't get a before temp on the stock system which is a bummer. Just at idle I was surprised how hot the canister got.

Aardwolf

On yeah, the evap system is long gone (Canisterectomy procedure). I put a fuel cell tip valve on a short line at the tank. The vac system is super simple, one line to the AFPR, one to the brake booster, and one to the PVC (plus fresh air on the passenger side). The cruise control ball in that area is gone too. Makes for lots of room. Some pix:





Redesigned the forward fuel lines too:

Aardwolf

Interior changed a little too:

dan_t

keeping a close eye on your progress mate - I'm liking all the functional mods so far!

I've just ordered an Oil Cooler kit as I'm also seeing temps of 250f pretty quickly! No point having the power and not being able to use it is there!

Kubs

Andrew that looks good. Thats pretty much the same setup as mine.

Here are my pics. Pardon the mess, it definitely aint a show car!





I routed mine out of the shroud and under the frame. The line "TO" the cooler goes under the cross member and the "RETURN" line goes up to a tee where there is a check valve and the line from the accusump.









Here if you look through the header tubes you can see both lines from the filter adapter along the block in between the block and engine mount.

ScaryFast

Andrew, looking good. No NASA at MA this year, you doing any other tracks?

You are correct, sir. LTx cars have no factory oil cooler. Bob, you'll need a bigger radiator (like a DeWitt's or BeCool) with a built in oil cooler, or add a cooler like Andrew did in front of the stock radiator. Or both, like I have...

Brian, are you still using the stock PS cooler? I assume you car has one? You could simply go with a larger or more efficient one. However, after adding the DRM high pressure line and a Turn One rebuilt pump I've never had any problems with my PS system in many years. Do you have both of those items?

With synthetic oil, 250* is nothing to worry about, even for sustained periods. 300 would worry me, but not a lot. What is your coolant temp? That's far more important to engine power than oil temp. LTx's like high water temps (200-220*), and you're probably reading the water temp in the block. Due to the reverse flow pump this is after the heads, meaning that they're getting much cooler water. I'm not sure about L98 optimum temps, perhaps Mike or Andrew can chime in.

Kubs

The L98s are designed to run higher temps as well for emissions reasons. It was not uncommon for me to see 200-220 water temps in regular driving. However, at the track there was just not enough cooling power in the stock system. I switched to a 160 t-stat to keep the temps lowER at the track but that only gave me an extra lap or two before the oil got to around 280+. I am going to switch back to the stock 190 t-stat to make the engine run hotter like Jon mentioned, because the added cooler works so well.

BrianCunningham

The steerings is stock complete with the cooler.
but I'm running 335's up front.

I'm putting in a fast ratio rack, which will make it worse.

The high pressure line & Turn One pump are on the list.

dan_t

I'm seeing 250f on the road when driving spiritedly for about 10 minuites or so. I don't know how much higher it would go as I start short shifting. I would have thought the problem would be even worse on track where I'd be able to use the full rev range.

Coolant seems to peak around 220-230f, I'm hoping that by installing an oil cooler will also help bring this down slightly as it'll be working less.

I know these figures are OK, but I don't like the feeling of not having much of a margin of safetey with them.

Edit to say I'm on a 180f stat

rfn026

I don't get too concerned about 250-degree oil temps. I've spoken to the Mobil engineers and they see no problem with those temps. They did though encourage me to go to a 5W-30 oil. I had been running 260 to 270 with heavy oil. Mobil didn't see a problem with the temps but they did see a problem with all the friction that was taking place. The 20W-40 was just creating too much drag and raising the oil temps.

I now run 250 to 256 at both Sebring and Homestead. I don't have any problems with that.

Water temps run between 225 and 230 at both tracks. I have an L98 with an oil cooler so the coolant is taking heat out of the oil. The old L98 oil cooler is a very good system. It's so good that GM put the same system (basically) on the 2011 LS3 (i think) engines. They showed me the new oil cooling system at the Wixom High Performance Build Center a few months back but I wasn't paying attention.

Richard Newton
My C4 Track Car

Aardwolf

NASA not having a Road America event this year made me sad. I really wanted to try TT. I had to rebuild the engine and am still working on the tune. I will be ready soon though! I'm signed up for an event the end up August. I found a local guy with scales and we are going to do a corner weigh, that's got me excited.

Brian, I just swapped from the quick ratio to the slow ratio and can't tell the difference.

250° oil temp is fine, I agree. However I'm going from shifting at 5,200 RPM to 6,200 RPM so I'm making sure the car has more cooling.

I would not want high coolant temps on these engines for track use. You can run more timing and/or have less chance of detonation with lower coolant temps. You want cool heads and a hot block, but you don't want to much heat sucked away from the combustion chamber. So a coating there is good.