Not good. What are those heat exchangers made of? My heat exchanger is made out of stainless steel, so I don't expect corrosion to be an issue.I just got rid of a similar contraption that comes factory on old F250s because they eventually rot through internally and mix the coolant with the oil.
My new oil cooler/warmer setup
- Thread starter Avery4
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After taking it off it appeared to be some grade of stainless, but thin wall enough to (potentially in my case) eventually break through after enough years of corrosion/heat-cool thermal cycles, etc.
It's a common mod once people old trucks get on in years because we don't want it milk-shaking our enigne.
I'm sure you could reasonably expect a decade or more out of it safely if built well and maintaining the coolant, but don't trust the heat exchanger to last forever.
Thank you for the heads up! This heat exchanger is pretty thick and heavy, so I think I am good for a while. I will keep an eye on it though and inspect the coolant side next time I change the coolant. I keep a pretty close eye on oil and coolant levels and condition, so if anything goes wrong I will be sure to correct the issue immediately.After taking it off it appeared to be some grade of stainless, but thin wall enough to (potentially in my case) eventually break through after enough years of corrosion/heat-cool thermal cycles, etc.
It's a common mod once people old trucks get on in years because we don't want it milk-shaking our enigne.
I'm sure you could reasonably expect a decade or more out of it safely if built well and maintaining the coolant, but don't trust the heat exchanger to last forever.
I think a more likely failure in my case may be from pressure cycles. The cooler is rated for 435 PSI on both sides and my oil pressure never exceeds 100 PSI, but I could see how the frequent and rapid pressure cycles that the oil side of the heat exchanger goes through could potentially cause a failure over time. Hopefully that won't happen though since I am staying well under 25% of the cooler's max pressure rating at all times.
You are welcome, and I don't mean to worry you. The heat-exchange used on my truck may have been a less robust design than the one you used. Sounds like you will be just fine keeping it maintained and watching for leaks like any good responsible owners auto maintenance plan.
I actually considered getting an electric oil pump to circulate oil from the pan through the cooler and back into the pan so the cooler and lines aren't under high pressure and so oil flow isn't disrupted, but I decided to install the cooler this way instead because heating or cooling all the oil on its way to the engine seemed much more effective than just circulating some of the oil through the cooler and dumping the heated or cooled oil back into the pan. Also, I don't think the system would work nearly as well as it does with the much lower flow rate of an electric pump. Hopefully I don't end up regretting not keeping the system low pressure.You are welcome, and I don't mean to worry you. The heat-exchange used on my truck may have been a less robust design than the one you used. Sounds like you will be just fine keeping it maintained and watching for leaks like any good responsible owners auto maintenance plan.
I may misunderstand your system, but on my factory system coolant hoses went in and out of a sandwich plate adapter mounted to the block, and the filter screwed on that. There were no high pressure oil lines, but enough people do remote filters and remote oil coolers the high pressure oil lines are fairly common.
Yup I've seen those setups before. I thought about getting one of those instead of building this setup, but the problem is I was not able to find one that would fit on my block for a reasonable price. The early 90's Integra GSR oil cooler was about the only one I could find that would work for me, but those sell for $100+ used and I doubt that such a small cooler would be effective enough to be worth adding. It would likely help by a few degrees, but I certainly wouldn't have gotten nearly the same level of performance out of that setup that I am getting out of this setup. Also, I didn't trust a nearly 30 year old heat exchanger and I didn't want a used one since it likely came off of a blown engine and would likely be contaminated with metal particles.
fluid/fluid interchangers are much more effective and smaller than you'd think. Look at the size difference in air/air intercoolers vs air/liquid....
But I would have put something new on myself aswell.
But I would have put something new on myself aswell.
That's true but either way there's a lot of heat to be transferred with a relatively small temp difference between the oil and the coolant. I know of several people who have had issues with high oil temps even with those OEM style coolers. One person on a forum had a stock Acura RSX-S with one of those OEM coolers and his oil temp was easily exceeding 270 degrees after a couple minutes on the track with sub 200 degree coolant temps, which doesn't seem too effective to me. Perhaps its better than nothing, but I wouldn't consider that adequate or effective enough to be worth adding.
Also, a guy on Youtube did a temp comparison on his Subaru BRZ and found that the cooler made a couple degrees difference during warmup, no difference while cruising, and it dropped the maximum oil temp from around 105 degrees C to around 100 degrees C while he was beating on it. So it seemed to help a little bit, but it didn't make enough of a difference to be worth adding IMO. Those OEM Subaru coolers are pretty large too compared to a lot of them. Here are the videos of his testing if you want to check it out.
