oil cooler idea

[lostforawhile]

I had an idea for an oil cooler,i had thought about putting one in,but there was no room at the front of the car,besides that's a disaster in an accident if it breaks,and a rock magnet. I noticed there is a ton of room at the side of the front bumper where the horns are, i was thinking of mounting a small blower unit from something like a geo metro or something else small in there,the heat blower,and ducting the air to an oil cooler at the back of the firewall,there is room to mount a small cooler in there. it would be thermostatically controlled to turn on when the oil got to a certain temp. i found a perma cool oilfilter adaptor with a built in thermostat,that makes the plumbing only two short hoses to the cooler. you need a thermostatic control to keep oil from going through the cooler under a certain temp. summit has a digital fan control with a readout that would work great for the blower unit. Where i live it gets really hot and the traffic is getting worse,this really heats up your oil bad. what do you guys think?

[lostforawhile]

I'm not worried about front end damage,i'm worried about the fire danger of a busted oil cooler. if it's at the rear firewall toward the center it as far from any edge as you can get it. we duct the coolers on the airplanes and it seems to work well, i'm mostly worried about the cooler working while i'm in traffic with no airflow.

[racerx]

eww... castrol...

anyway, sounds like a really cool idea! you could make a nice little scoop somewhere (hidden, or a big obvious one...).
And if you could get a digital temp readout, or something to inform you of the temp, that would be awesome! I've been thinking about getting an oil cooler for a while, and having a blower motor cool it sounds like an outstanding idea.
Maybe a C02 shot? lol
If you use a scoop from natural air flow, just make sure your fan can spin fast enough when 100mph winds are blowing across it. Like the radiator fan; it can spin as fast as you can get it going, because it has the fan clutch.
If the fan is permanently affixed to the motor, make sure the fan doesn't restrict airflow, otherwise the wind will probably end up spinning the motor faster than it was designed to go. The more the fan restricts air, the more the wind will have to turn it to get past.
i.e.:
Not very restrictive (the wind can easily blow past the fins, thus not creating too much spin)


Very restrictive (all off the wind going in will have to push the fins to get past, thus creating more spin... this is why turbo fans look like this)


Is this getting too technical?

[lostforawhile]

what i was thinking of doing is using a blower from a car heating system,i was going to mount it out of site in the big area of open space on the side of the bumper. where the horns are. it can pull air from the vent opening at the bottom of the front bumper. it doesn't have to be directly connected to it. there is a lot of open area in there. the ouput of the blower would be ducted to the cooler,which would need a shroud. i thought of using a blower from a heating system because it moves a lot of air at low velocity. they are a squirrel cage motor,it's also very compact. you want high cfm at low speed to transfer heat, high speed air at low volume is not as efficient as low speed air at high volume. it really doesn't need to work at high speed because the cooling system is more efficient at those speeds. it's when you are sitting in traffic with just the air from the fans cooling the radiator that the oil starts to heat up. thats because the cooling system is not as efficient then and the extra heat is transferred to the oil. also when you are moving there is air that is moving over the oil pan helping to tranfer heat from it. a finned oil pan might not be a bad idea eithier,more surface area more heat transfer.I have done a lot to this motor and it generates a lot more heat then the standard motor does. oh there is a digital gauge already made, it tells you the temp readout and lets you set the fan turn on temp.

[carotman]

many honda engines use a sanwich oil cooler that goes between the oil filter and block. it uses the engine coolant comming from the waterpump to cool the oil. This setup will not give you the coolest oil but it cannot fail and cause fire damage. I wonder if we could adapt a cooler from another engine to the A20A.

if not, you can use a sandwich adapter and use a radiator from an automatic 3g. they have oil lines to cool down the tranny fluid. You could use that as an oil cooler also.

[lostforawhile]

many honda engines use a sanwich oil cooler that goes between the oil filter and block. it uses the engine coolant comming from the waterpump to cool the oil. This setup will not give you the coolest oil but it cannot fail and cause fire damage. I wonder if we could adapt a cooler from another engine to the A20A.

if not, you can use a sandwich adapter and use a radiator from an automatic 3g. they have oil lines to cool down the tranny fluid. You could use that as an oil cooler also.

i thought of that as a matter of fact i have an auto transmission radiator, it was the same price but had the cooler,i'm not sure if it can flow enough oil for a cooler,i was worried about restriction and pressure drop. i was thinking of using that one for a ps fluid cooler,and getting rid of the ugly loop on the front. the sandwitch adaptor i found has a built in thermostat too, i was wanting to put that cooler in the center lower part of the firewall, that way there is a lot in the way in the event of a crash.i was thinking of using aeroquip breakaway fittings too, they self seal if broken. aeroquip makes a water to oil cooler,it's just expensive . i would like to get an oil cooler from an airplane,they are made to withstand a lot of g's,but the price is unreal.

[lostforawhile]

many honda engines use a sanwich oil cooler that goes between the oil filter and block. it uses the engine coolant comming from the waterpump to cool the oil. This setup will not give you the coolest oil but it cannot fail and cause fire damage. I wonder if we could adapt a cooler from another engine to the A20A.

if not, you can use a sandwich adapter and use a radiator from an automatic 3g. they have oil lines to cool down the tranny fluid. You could use that as an oil cooler also.

has anyone found one of these that will fit the a20 block? talking about the one that has coolant going through it. who says you can't run a small external cooler somewhere with an electric water pump? that way nothing would go through it but coolant.