Heat exchanger idea. Opinions?

[XS650]

Ex, you have just described a complicated version of a fluid to fluid heat exchanger. Quite a few cars have been built with fluid to fluid heat exchangers for engine oil, including my 1995 GMC S-15.

The heat exchanger should see higher coolant flow than you get from the heater core, so that's not a real good location.

You normally don't need a thermostat, because the coolant heats up faster than the oil anyway, so that helps get your oil up to operating temp with no extra complications. If you live in a real cold climate, plumbing to allow you to heat/cool your oil with coolant that just came out of the engine might be useful.

Trans oil should run cooler than engine oil so the heat exchanger should use coolant that has already run through the radiator...opps, that's what virtually all production cars already do.

 

[ExDelayed]

quote:

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Originally posted by XS650:
Quite a few cars have been built with fluid to fluid heat exchangers for engine oil

The heat exchanger should see higher coolant flow than you get from the heater core, so that's not a real good location.

Trans oil should run cooler than engine oil so the heat exchanger should use coolant that has already run through the radiator...opps, that's what virtually all production cars already do.

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Unluckily for me, none of my vehicles came equipped with a 'real' one so thats where this idea came from.

I was thinking heater core lines because those see the increasing temperature coolant well before the radiator ever does. It also does not see cooled coolant which would be the idea of warming everything up faster.

The idea came around last winter when I was making a 40 minute commute to work on the freeway. In town during the three other seasons the trans gets up to temp quickly because of the stop and go nature of town driving. However, when one gets on the freeway in the winter the car goes into overdrive and does not see the stresses of stop and go. Near the end of the commute the trans would finally be up to about 175, just in time to turn the car off. What heat was given off by the cool side of the radiator's heat exchanger was quickly removed by the aftermarket trans cooler.

Perhaps I am just overthinking this whole thing and could help it considerably by just adding a thermostat to the trans/engine coolers to keep them from working before they should.

 

[ExDelayed]

So I have tossed this idea around for a little while as to what it would do to the wear numbers on a engine/trans. IMHO, this setup would most likely be better in a cold climate, but it would probably be useful almost everywhere.

It starts out as a tube (or a box) that is plumbed into the cooling system after the heater core. Inside this tube there would be two other tubes, one for the trans and one for the oil. Both would be plumbed into that system just before the fluid reenters the engine/trans. So you would need a bypass filter (probably not enough flow) or a remote mounted oil filter for the oil. The trans is easier because it could be plumbed in directly after the OEM cooler. You would need a oil thermostat on both the oil and trans to keep the cooler from cooling until everything is up to operating spec. At, say, 160F, the electric solenoid valves would close and a one way valve would open allowing the oil or transmission fluid to go around the heat exchanger, keeping heatsoak of the fluids to a minumum. The one way valves would also help keep oil above the filter in the oiling system. They would also be a safety just in case the electric valve didnt open.

IMHO, the much faster warming engine (most likely the coolant) would help warm the other fluids getting the entire vehicle up to operating temperature much faster.

Opinions, thoughts?

-Jon