Oil to water heat exchanger to replace oil rad.

[diesel des]

Ok my AAN stock cooler was looking poor and oil temps got high during a trash so about 6 months ago i binned it in favour of a 20-24row mocal cooler. This brought temps down on my car (400+hp) no problem. BUT i have ZERO room to get a cold air feed to my new air box setup. Even with the stock cooler i would struggle for room for a good sized duct. I have one of those RS4 look bumpers so i have a big duct in that front corner. I also have a FMIC so space for coolers is a rail problem.

Now if i was to dump the oil rad completely and replace it with a plate exchanger such as this i would have loads of room for a duct as the plate unit doesnt need airflow. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/High-grade-ste...item2a03beaaa7

Now i realise the oil cant cool any cooler than the water temp eg 90 deg, but these plate exchangers are very efficient and i should be able to get oil temp to stay below 110 deg c during a trash. Thats fine with me. I just need to run 2 water pipes over from the back of the cylinder head eg T'd from where the heater matrix hoses are. Its even easier on my car as i already have water hoses for my gas vapourisers there.

Your thoughts please. Anyone do this before on an I520VT. Its like a oil cooler on a modern audi, only WAY bigger...

[Jamo]

I've posted about it before, quite a few cars do it.

You need to plum it just after the stat on that metal pipe ideally, if you take it from the head coolant will be too hot IMO

[diesel des]

Yea Jamo, i need to look at the water circuit in more detail. But with the gas in my car i actually cool the water in the vapouriser to about 70 deg. Thats the water i need to divert and its the easiest to pick up on... Might be a good job then.

Anyone have any idea what the oil flow rate is in our engines at full wack? Cant be that high as it is ok in 1/2 inch bsp pipes on my car with no pressure loss. 50/l min?

[s2_wot]

@Des, the only concern about that plate heat exchanger would be the mounting. You'd have to make sure it was mounted somehow so the mountings will move without causing the exchanger to flex. There are so many joints in there that you'd expect a fatigue failure somewhere if the mounting was too solid to the chassis. The typical installation for these plate exchangers is a stationary, non twisting, non vibrating location.

Could you find the water to oil exchanger off a 500+ BHP road car and use it instead.

[diesel des]

Think I might give it a go. Mount the exchanger with rubber mounts on the body not the engine and see what happens. Even a oil cooler is easy broke with a stone in the right place...

[A80Avant]

I must say that this is the first time i have seen the need to go towards these solutions for oil heating. I have a 16 row oil cooler and never had oil temps higher than 80-90C at most. Also there is still room for air filter and air guides towards it. With this solution and a bit of heat shield, i end up having inlet temps roughly same as ambient temps.

[JP]

I assume most of the 400+ motors here run 5w40 fully synthetic esther based oils which are rated to run at 100celsius anything below 90 degrees is too cold and if you continuously run at 110celsius all you do is upgrade the oil to a 50.

Now to remotely mount an alternate exchanger could not use one of the ones that comes on a 1.8t or other VAG 4 pot motors all it will do is lower the height of your oil filter. See what temp your engine runs at and use appropriate oil to suit.

[s2_wot]

Think I might give it a go. Mount the exchanger with rubber mounts on the body not the engine and see what happens. Even a oil cooler is easy broke with a stone in the right place...

I'd like to see it, those plate exchangers are very efficient, I was more thinking about an internal leak causing oil and water to mix and one of them to migrate and then

Shane

EDIT:

Found this link from some research I was doing previously, HTH

http://www.thinkauto.com/takeoff.htm

[diesel des]

A80avant, the urs4 has little room for the oil cooler. I think on the s2/rs2 you guys remove the aux water rad and put the oil cooler there. The only place i can mount a oil cooler is right in the way of the air box feed. Also to be any usefull size it is mounted at an angle and so gets little air flow.

RWD19T, i run 15/50 full syn oil. My engine has 220K miles and makes twice stock power on lpg so the thicker oil is doing no harm. Yea the tdi/1.8t coolers are actually a plate exchanger, but the ones i was looking at are larger. So should keep the oil from getting tooo warm.

s2 wot, I have looked at think automotive stuff looks good. We dont need a take off plate though as we have a oil feed and return for a cooler already which is controled by a stat in the block.

[A80Avant]

i actually still have the aux rad in. Only thing we had to do to fit the 16 row cooler (although it may be smaller, i dont remember correctly) was to cut out the front towing area that goes to the chassis. Now i can only be towed in reverse.