Oil Cooler Question

[barrelroll]

I'm working on gathering parts for a class 11 bug and am working on sourcing an oil cooler. We run a Howe cooler on the 6100 truck power steering system mounted down low in the bulkhead. It cools the steering nice and is much more durable than a stacked plate or tube and fin cooler. My thought is to probably put it low in the back window with big hydraulic hoses (-12 hose with a -8 fitting on the motor side and -10 on the cooler fittings) for more oil capacity and forget about it. It seems class 11 guys are 50/50 weather they are running an oil cooler fan or not. Any reason not to run one as an engine oil cooler on the class 11? Is there any real difference between a power steering cooler and a engine oil cooler? It cools a 1600PSI, 8 GPM power steering pump on a 5,000 lb truck on 37's.

Here's the cooler, it's part # 1150 http://www.howeperformance.com/parts/in-line-coolers/

[tripicana]

Do they even make a -12 hose to -8 jic crimp fitting?
I think any extra capacity you want will need to be in the sump, not in the hoses. When I raced out at CORE, without a sump, oil light would flicker at almost every hard turn and jump. With cb's thin line 1.5qt sump all those problems went away.
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foam cowboy hats aren't good helmets.

[dirtkeeper]

I finally put an external cooler and fan and filter and am glad I did. O n the hot days under hard conditions my car would teeter on the hot side. The cooler and extra capacity eliminates all the worry. Just use good fittings and hoses.

I’m not sure if a power steering cooler would work but seems like a different kind of application I would confirm if it’s suitable.

I don’t think the class 11 racing rules , allow external coolers but I could be wrong.

[oldschool5er]

I don't think the Howe cooler would be as efficient as running a tube or plate style in this case just because of the actual surface area exposed to the oil as compared to a multi pass or plate style. It seems more suited for a shock cooling reservoir.

I have always ran a stock offset cooler and a rear 1/4 window multi pass in any C11 or 5/1600 full body SCORE car. I used to run a multi pass on the rear cowl from 77-84 in SCORE, but I moved them to the 1/4 rear window because I found better air flow. I think you will need both in any Baja race especially if you are going to run the Hi Comp motor provision. I never ran a fan in C11 but can see why you would want to with some styles of coolers. This is an Air Cooled motor after all and you will race at times in 100 degree heat and those silt beds, long deep sand washes, and slow going long up hills don't help.

According to SCORE rules at least, you can not run a deep sump or sump modification at all.

You can get AN adaptors from -12 AN down, but I personally try to limit odd connections as much as possible because if you get a cracked fitting during a race you can be hard pressed to rig up a bypass or a work around. I always carried a male to male fitting to bypass the external cooler and a plate blockoff for the stock cooler. But I have never needed to do either during a race.
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HRE in Westerville,Ohio

Full machine shop with all types of CNC. Rapid prototyping available, CNC Plasma cutting, 3D printing and Laser engraving.

[barrelroll]

Thanks for the responses. I like the anvil toughness of the Howe cooler but for the same money I can get a decent plate and fin cooler. I thought we had -8 to -12 hose ends but we don't I'll do some more digging. I don't want a pile of adapters, just NPT to JIC adapters threaded into ports and then female JIC swivels crimped on the ends of my hoses. If it works good enough to last years on a piece of mining equipment at work it should work well in a class 11.

Part #2 of my question. I bought a pile of parts and it came with a bunch of oil cooler adapters. I'm not sold on using any of them but might use them. I don't think I'm going to full flow the case in the interest of keeping the oil lines up high and away from the exhaust. I'm going to run a non dog house shroud and might just get an adapter that keeps the factory cooler to keep air flow going where it needs to go.

I'm building off of a 1970 single port case, it has the smaller 8mm cooler holes. Some of my cooler adapters have 8mm port holes and some have 10mm port holes. If I go with a cooler bypass adapter should I just use one with 8mm holes on an 8mm case or is there a reason to use a 10mm hole adapter? Any reason to get the holes of the case opened up to 10mm?

Any thoughts on these cooler adapters? One has EMPI stamped on it, the rest are mystery parts. Any of them better than the others? Are they worth running in a race car or should they go in the swap meet pile?

Lastly I found this oil filter mount in my parts pile. Is it a decent piece to run or should I throw it in the swap meet pile? It uses a PH8A filter. The hose barb ends will get thrown away and replaced with NPT to Male JIC/ AN adapters.

[mr_bill]

oil-filter & oil-cooler WITH fan in my 11 car....
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see ya' on the trail........

"Mr Bill"
Dos Perros Motorsports
Orange, CA
1972 Class 11x/Stock Bug
'60's era "vintage" Tunnell-Buggy

"...no one here....get's out ALIVE...."

Motor = electric
Engine = internal combustion

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[barrelroll]

[dustymojave]

My comment on all those oil cooler adapters is DON'T DO IT!

You should put a by-pass fitting or a dog-house cooler on there. And NOT one of the by-pass that looks like those oil cooler adapters.

You only pass about 1/3 of the total oil flow through the top of the case, and only at certain times when the oil pressure is relatively high. VW didn't want the oil to pass through the cooler when the engine is cold, and thus the oil thick.

If you want to build yourself a RACE CAR then it needs to have a full-flow oil system. I just posted in another thread about that a couple of days ago. A full-flow system the oil exits the pump through a pump cover plate with a fitting for it. Then the oil returns to the case at an oil galley in the case just before the oil pressure relief valve. You have to tap the oil galley where it normally exits the pump and pug it with an allen plug. Then you need to drill and tap the oil galley. Both should be done when the engine is all apart. Mr Bill's Bug has full-flow.
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Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[mr_bill]

[barrelroll]

[oldschool5er]

I just want to say that I have never had a fire or issue running my full flow lines up from the pump and case inlet to the filter and oil cooler. After 40+ years of doing it that way I feel pretty confident about it. If you are really worried about it being close to the exhaust they do make fire sleeves that slip over the AN lines, I used them at one time but only because I was buying jet engine AN oil lines from the old McDonald Douglas salvage yard and they had them on already. Never needed them at all in my C11 and it raced more than a few Baja races without burning up.
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HRE in Westerville,Ohio

Full machine shop with all types of CNC. Rapid prototyping available, CNC Plasma cutting, 3D printing and Laser engraving.

[dustymojave]

I did the same as oldschool5er in my mostly stock street '67 Bug Daily Driver.

I put fire sleeve (it's orange silicon hose with ceramic fiber like header wrap inside) on the lines that passed under my headers to the filter under the left fender and up to the external cooler, and held them in that area with a support made of strap bolted to the head so they wouldn't flop against the headers. The end of the support strap got a pair of 'P' clamps to hold the hoses.

I put over 400,000 miles on that car before a woman backed out of a blind driveway into the side of it to kill it. Never had an issue with hot oil lines.

For your Class 11 racer, you should take the oil lines up through the tin and over to the firewall. The best place for a cooler is in the left rear 1/4 window. But I hate having the filter inside the cockpit because it can make a hell of a mess changing the filter.

[barrelroll]

Ok, you guys have me convinced to go full flow. I have a couple full flow oil pump covers so it's only going to cost me a couple extra plugs to do it.

We used to do a lot of work for/ I know the owner of this place when I lived in Indiana http://shop.hoseandfittings.com/catalog/Hose/Hose_Guard/Fire_Sleeve/FS-08.html and my old boss used to run this fire sleeve on his plug wires that sat right on his headers with 0 issues. An extra $20 in fire sleeve isn't going to break the budget and is cheap piece of mind.

Thanks for the filter number. I'll add that to my class 11 parts list.

[Dale M.]

About FRAM filters.... Note detail about 7:25 into video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrAbxCZlZpE

This is why I vote no on Fram...

I have always has success with WIX filter and NAPA Gold version of WIX filter...

Dale
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“Fear The Government That Wants To Take Your Guns" - Thomas Jefferson.

"Kellison Sand Piper Roadster" For Street & Show.
"Joe Pody Sandrover" Buggy with 2180 for Autocross (Sold)
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All suggestions and advice are purely my own opinion. You are free to ignore them if you wish ...