Thread: engine oil cooler

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Originally posted by Deluga
Again remember I've been out of the automotive engine rebuilding since the late 60"s. Working on a car with my son. This car has an engine oil cooler. It this a good, bad or just a waste for a street car? Never had any experience with them.

You're saying this car has a cooler. By all means, use it. It certainly can't hurt anything.

Boy did I open a can of worms. I should probably give you the specs as I know on the engine. 350 with a Comp 292 cam, Keith Black dome pistons, 350 trans , 411 rear and 2800 stall converter. Engine completely rebuilt with about 25 hours on it. My son bought the car, 71 Nova, over E bay. After running the engine , about a total of three more hours, the valves started to tap and then the engine started to smoke. The engine was bored 30 over. Did a compression check and was 170 accross the board. Decided to pull the heads and take them to a machine shop. Bad news. Nothing in the head was what it was suppose to be. No new parts like the write up said. I decided to take the block over to the machine shop and a quick visual it was determined that possibly some of the rings have not seated. Am waiting for teardown and answer on just what is what. Well anyway getting back to the oil cooler, the engine did run very hot , according to the temp gauge. The machine shop it should'nt and they'll try to find an answer why. So I guess the engine cooler might have helped to an extent. Just not quite sure where to go from here.

Deluga, my understanding was you wanted to know did you "need" an motor oil cooler on a "st." driven car. the answer is "no" you don't, but "if" one is there it wouldn't hurt to hook it up. to me it looks bad, its in the way, it may leak, and i wouldn't have one on my hot rod. i've run oil temp. gauges on most all of my st. cars and getting the oil temp. up is more of a problem than cooling it off. you could have had 2 oil coolers on you motor and it would have did the samething. if you water temp. is good then the oil temp is good, but you're not gonna cool you your motor with a oil cooler. i dont think GM has ever put a oil cooler on any car that i know of from the factory.


Do a poll and ask everybody "Do you run motor oil coolers on your hot rod, yes or no and lets see what everybody else does.

Lots of cop cars and taxis have factory oil coolers. The makers don't like them on Joe Citizen grocery getters because they are a potential leak source, and they cost money. The ones in the radiator are better in cold climates because they actually warm the oil faster on a cold start, as do trans coolers in the rad tank. The Ford cop car ones have a bypass in the adapter that lets cold oil reach the engine easier at startup.

LT1S10..... factory oil coolers were in C5 Corvettes, Vipers, some Cadillacs, and I think, some early Boss Mustangs. The Chevy one had an adapter that fit above the oil filter.

I agree that gettng the oil temp up high enough is usually the challenge. We had an oil cooler on the rock crawler and took it off. The oil temp stays roughly in line with the water temp (180F) even when idling on a Tucson summer day.

Oil coolers on non-drag race cars are there for a purpose. Like a NASCAR car, the water cooling is marginal so the oil cooler supplements the radiator cooling. If your street car is that close to the edge, something is wrong OR you have a bazillion horsepower motor.

Originally posted by robot
.. have a bazillion horsepower motor.

Speaking of bazillion..........
This blonde notices the headlines on the morning paper of the guy sitting close to her, it reads, “3 BRAZILLION SOLDIERS KILLED.”
She exclaims, “wow, that is awful.”
She turns to the guy and asks, “sir, how many are there in a brazillion?”

But yeah, lt1, like was already posted, numerous cars come with them from the factory, as do numerous makes of 4x4 trucks.

Originally posted by Deluga
Boy did I open a can of worms. I should probably give you the specs as I know on the engine. 350 with a Comp 292 cam, Keith Black dome pistons, 350 trans , 411 rear and 2800 stall converter. Engine completely rebuilt with about 25 hours on it. My son bought the car, 71 Nova, over E bay. After running the engine , about a total of three more hours, the valves started to tap and then the engine started to smoke. The engine was bored 30 over. Did a compression check and was 170 accross the board. Decided to pull the heads and take them to a machine shop. Bad news. Nothing in the head was what it was suppose to be. No new parts like the write up said. I decided to take the block over to the machine shop and a quick visual it was determined that possibly some of the rings have not seated. Am waiting for teardown and answer on just what is what. Well anyway getting back to the oil cooler, the engine did run very hot , according to the temp gauge. The machine shop it should'nt and they'll try to find an answer why. So I guess the engine cooler might have helped to an extent. Just not quite sure where to go from here.

Another idea is run synthetic oil.This will help lower your oil temps.

just for reference, on my street big block I have an oil temp gauge. The oil would peak at about the temp of the water if I wasn't moving at all.
When I was moving on back roads it would drop down well below the temp gauge start point (140).

My biggest problem was oil being too Cool.

Maybe I should install and oil heater.

This cooler on my son's Nova is definetly an aftermarket addition. It didn't come from the factory that way. I was just wondering since the engine seemed to run hot, if the previous owner had a concern about the oil getting too hot. From what most replies say getting the oil to the right high temperature is the challenge not cooling it off. Your right about it looking like a mess. An adapter is mounted on the block, hoses run from the adapter to the cooling coil, then to the filter and back to the engine. Rubber hose heaven.

Engine oil provides 60% of an engines cooling efficency ( antifreeze coolant, the remaining 40% ) , so a cooler oil would seem better, but really only efficent if the oil temp exceeds the optimum tempurture of the oil and gets too thin when hot, which is listed on the oil container, the colder oil becomes thicker, therefor you get more oil preassure, without the oil cooler, the oil would be thinner and have less preassure. It is not nessary, but won't hurt anything.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Deluga
This cooler on my son's Nova is definetly an aftermarket addition. It didn't come from the factory that way. I was just wondering since the engine seemed to run hot, if the previous owner had a concern about the oil getting too hot. From what most replies say getting the oil to the right high temperature is the challenge not cooling it off. Your right about it looking like a mess. An adapter is mounted on the block, hoses run from the adapter to the cooling coil, then to the filter and back to the engine. Rubber hose heaven. [/QUOTE

Go ahead and hook it up, I'll bet you you'll blow the motor up from a leak before you blow it up from the oil being to hot. cool your motor and the oil will take care of itself.

Originally posted by TyphoonZR
Speaking of bazillion..........
This blonde notices the headlines on the morning paper of the guy sitting close to her, it reads, “3 BRAZILLION SOLDIERS KILLED.”
She exclaims, “wow, that is awful.”
She turns to the guy and asks, “sir, how many are there in a brazillion?”

But yeah, lt1, like was already posted, numerous cars come with them from the factory, as do numerous makes of 4x4 trucks.

TyphoonZR, I was talking about a nova. you need to lay off whatever you're smoking. you have no idea what you're talking about.

Originally posted by R Pope
Lots of cop cars and taxis have factory oil coolers. The makers don't like them on Joe Citizen grocery getters because they are a potential leak source, and they cost money. The ones in the radiator are better in cold climates because they actually warm the oil faster on a cold start, as do trans coolers in the rad tank. The Ford cop car ones have a bypass in the adapter that lets cold oil reach the engine easier at startup.

lots of cops cars don't have them. cop cars has sirens and blue lights, but I wouldn't put them on my hot rod.

I dunno, a sireen would be cool!

Originally posted by tcodi
just for reference, on my street big block I have an oil temp gauge. The oil would peak at about the temp of the water if I wasn't moving at all.
When I was moving on back roads it would drop down well below the temp gauge start point (140).

My biggest problem was oil being too Cool.

Maybe I should install and oil heater.

Are you trying to be funny?