Show me your front oil cooler..., ...running through the fog light grills Options

[GTeener]

I'm considering adding oil coolers behind my front fog light grills. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

Who else has done this?
What's it look like?
Are you satisfied with the results?

[GTeener]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif) OK... so why is it less preferable to do the oil cooler the proposed way as opposed to the open-mouthed GT way?

[drew365]

I know it's been discussed, don't know if anyone has done it. The two biggest drawbacks would be:
Size of cooler would be small, if you go to the trouble to plumb a cooler up front you want to get as much benefit as possible.
Where would you exhaust the hot air? There has to be good flow into, through and out of the cooler for it to be effective. The center of the car makes it easier to do.

[lapuwali]

Someone here (I want to say Brant) did two smaller coolers, each more or less through the bumper where the fog lights go, with ducting that took that straight into the wheel wells. The major downside is that the headlight buckets have to go, too. Not a very good setup for a street car.

I figure if you're going to do something different, be really different.

For a road car, or for AX, or even track duty with a mild-ish engine, I'm not convinced a "perfect" external cooler is required. Trekkor seems to do OK with almost no venting at all, he just put the cooler in the front trunk. Much like is speculated on 911s with "trombone" cooler, much of the cooling actually takes place in the lines. I would think a very intesting cooler setup would be a "surface" cooler, where you put hard lines with fins along the outside of the longs (or even just one long), plumb the oil to these hard lines with flex hoses, and there's your cooler. Loads of surface area, and the cooler isn't all that delicate or in a spot where it's likely to be easily damaged.

Another idea, convert the engine lid into a GT style, and mount the external cooler just below the forward part of the lid. There's certainly airflow here, and lots of otherwise wasted space. On your car, mounting it on the driver's side would probably be best, since you have all of your ignition stuff on the passenger side.

Yet another idea, mount it low in the engine bay, below the tin, near the firewall. If you're not running any heat, there's lots of room here.

If you are running heat, still another idea is to mount it atop a custom fresh air box at the base of the windscreen. I've seen this done, and the report was that it cooled the engine (a 3.2, in this case) adequately, but didn't generate as much cabin heat as desired. The lines to the cooler were run down the stock heater tubes, which dump straight into the right area for the cooler.

[brer]

This is something we have onfile for use with Chillers.
http://www.wlv.com/products/products/Enhanced/HFTrufin.pdf

run it up one long and down the other maybe?
something i thought of.

[BMartin914]

Gwen,

Search for Brant's race car thread. He has an A+++, 5 star setup utilizing the fog light grills for the intake air. Extremely clean, effective setup. Brant would probably say it is too effective - I believe they ended up blocking one side off...

[brant]

Thanks Ben!

so Gwen, I have a little experience in this area.
if you don't cut out your headlights and just run coolers against the body then your cooling is somewhat compromised.

Brad built Julius this way and the ended up running a 75 fiberglass bumper in order to move the coolers a few inches off of the body and get exit airflow.

without exit airflow coolers are hugely less efficient.

a PCA club racer budy of mine (car now owned by brian in AZ) tried a pair of fog light grill coolers without exits also. He ran PVC 5inch tubing from the driving light grill to the cooler, on a 2.2hot motor. but again with no exit behind the tiny mocal coolers that were approximately 1 inch off of the body.

He overheated badly at altitude.

he ended up giving up on the system and going with a front mounted cooler that had an exit.

my experiency on cooler exits on my old car led me to try 3 different exits with the same exact cooler. Each time I improved the exit, I dropped more oil temp.

you get something out of having the lines.

but you also get something out of having a functional cooler with a good exit ( larger exit than intake)

I did 2 huge coolers through the fog light grills on my 2.0/6 race car.
they work too much. I can barely get enough temp in the motor. But it's not streetable and I gave up my headlights.

overall... You will get something out of having the lines alone.
but if that something isn't enough then I would recommend a single front oil cooler with a good exit on a street legal car.

if you decide to go race only, then the fog light grills are neat as long as you provide a cooler exit into the wheel wheels and give up your headlights.

happy to talk at length and share my real life experience Gwen!
can provide pictures too.....

brant

[soupbone]

This is something we have onfile for use with Chillers.
http://www.wlv.com/products/products/Enhanced/HFTrufin.pdf

run it up one long and down the other maybe?
something i thought of.

Looks like these... http://www.elephantracing.com/oilhandling/oilines.htm

Dont know if they have kits for teeners but kinda $$$ tho.......

[McMark]

Gwen, I have an admittedly conservative view of oil cooling. I think you'd be sufficient with an oil cooler without any air flow. You could cut openings behind the fog lights just to introduce fresh air into the trunk. I like James idea of finned lines in the longs, but I think it's got a bit more R&D type work than I think you're looking for.

[Trekkor]

Trekkor seems to do OK with almost no venting at all, he just put the cooler in the front trunk.

Not exactly...

My HUGE cooler sits in front of three large exit holes.
I use the front grommet holes as my inlets.

So, I have fresh air in and hot air out.

On a track car, this has to be done. ( unless you like short sessions ) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)


KT

[Scott Carlberg]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/popcorn[1].gif)
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumb3d.gif)

[rickyhgarcia]

Gwen, I have an admittedly conservative view of oil cooling. I think you'd be sufficient with an oil cooler without any air flow. You could cut openings behind the fog lights just to introduce fresh air into the trunk. I like James idea of finned lines in the longs, but I think it's got a bit more R&D type work than I think you're looking for.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

I saw a very different setup in an Excellence Magazine article of a red California car. The owner installed the oil cooler inside the rear, passenger side, fender just forward of the wheel...there is quite a large empty space in that area. He commented that oil temperature was more than adequate. A side benefit of this install is that the oil lines are kept short.

I will be installing a cooler in this manner. Bought a Mocal 914 kit from BAT in Florida. I also bougth the hose and scoop from AJUSA´s 911 front brake cooler kit to experiment forcing air from underneath the car to the cooler area.

[machina]

was that a recent excellence article? do you know the issue?

[rickyhgarcia]

was that a recent excellence article? do you know the issue?

I´ll answer your question tonight...once I get home from work. Its an article from within the last three years. If you have old magazines, look for an article on a red 75 or 76 914...the big issue with this car was that the owner installed a custom made FI using a Volvo TB.

[dinomium]

was that a recent excellence article? do you know the issue?

I´ll answer your question tonight...once I get home from work. Its an article from within the last three years. If you have old magazines, look for an article on a red 75 or 76 914...the big issue with this car was that the owner installed a custom made FI using a Volvo TB.

hmmm ugmo has a scoop already!
Too bad it is UGLY AS SIN! and not one of the "fun" sins either! I always thought it would be a better spot for a cooler, roomy and protected. If you are running in a stock class, you might get dinged for non standard scoops...

[GTeener]

Thanks for the help guys. I talked to Tony more about his recommendation last night. His reasoning for the design proposal is that it is streetable, doesn't sacrifice my full spare tire in the front trunk, involves the least cutting up of the car and protects the coolers the best.

BUT He says he hasn't done an ail cooler setup on a 914 for almost 10 years (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) so maybe he doesn't know that the space under the headlights is too small for an oil cooler (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) he couldn't give me a price quote either, because he hasn't done it in a while.

A co-worker who is also an ex-Porsche mechanic suggested mounting an oil cooler and fan in the back close to the oil tank under the trunk protected by the rear suspension. He says it would be a short plumbing job that will provide adequate cooling (not as efficient as fresh air), not blow hot air into the engine, and require the least holes in the car. Says he did something similar to his VW bus. Anyone done or seen this done?

[rickyhgarcia]

Thanks for the help guys. I talked to Tony more about his recommendation last night. His reasoning for the design proposal is that it is streetable, doesn't sacrifice my full spare tire in the front trunk, involves the least cutting up of the car and protects the coolers the best.

BUT He says he hasn't done an ail cooler setup on a 914 for almost 10 years (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) so maybe he doesn't know that the space under the headlights is too small for an oil cooler (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) he couldn't give me a price quote either, because he hasn't done it in a while.

A co-worker who is also an ex-Porsche mechanic suggested mounting an oil cooler and fan in the back close to the oil tank under the trunk protected by the rear suspension. He says it would be a short plumbing job that will provide adequate cooling (not as efficient as fresh air), not blow hot air into the engine, and require the least holes in the car. Says he did something similar to his VW bus. Anyone done or seen this done?

Wes Hildreth in Dallas sells a kit that installs underneath the rear trunk as you indicated. It requires an electrical fan that is switched on-off manually from within the cockpit. I didn´t like the switching on-off part...the reason I am going inside the rear fender. This setup also uses short oil lines.

[GTeener]

Thanks for the help guys. I talked to Tony more about his recommendation last night. His reasoning for the design proposal is that it is streetable, doesn't sacrifice my full spare tire in the front trunk, involves the least cutting up of the car and protects the coolers the best.

BUT He says he hasn't done an ail cooler setup on a 914 for almost 10 years (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) so maybe he doesn't know that the space under the headlights is too small for an oil cooler (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) he couldn't give me a price quote either, because he hasn't done it in a while.

A co-worker who is also an ex-Porsche mechanic suggested mounting an oil cooler and fan in the back close to the oil tank under the trunk protected by the rear suspension. He says it would be a short plumbing job that will provide adequate cooling (not as efficient as fresh air), not blow hot air into the engine, and require the least holes in the car. Says he did something similar to his VW bus. Anyone done or seen this done?

Wes Hildreth in Dallas sells a kit that installs underneath the rear trunk as you indicated. It requires an electrical fan that is switched on-off manually from within the cockpit. I didn´t like the switching on-off part...the reason I am going inside the rear fender. This setup also uses short oil lines.

Seems inside the fender wells wouldn't protect the oil cooler from getting damaged (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) I saw that the MOCAL kits for the 911s mount them in the front fender wells. Anything that gets picked up by the tires and flinged around the weel wells seems to be a threat to an oil cooler in there.

Does Wes have a website?

[rickyhgarcia]

Thanks for the help guys. I talked to Tony more about his recommendation last night. His reasoning for the design proposal is that it is streetable, doesn't sacrifice my full spare tire in the front trunk, involves the least cutting up of the car and protects the coolers the best.

BUT He says he hasn't done an ail cooler setup on a 914 for almost 10 years (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) so maybe he doesn't know that the space under the headlights is too small for an oil cooler (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) he couldn't give me a price quote either, because he hasn't done it in a while.

A co-worker who is also an ex-Porsche mechanic suggested mounting an oil cooler and fan in the back close to the oil tank under the trunk protected by the rear suspension. He says it would be a short plumbing job that will provide adequate cooling (not as efficient as fresh air), not blow hot air into the engine, and require the least holes in the car. Says he did something similar to his VW bus. Anyone done or seen this done?

Wes Hildreth in Dallas sells a kit that installs underneath the rear trunk as you indicated. It requires an electrical fan that is switched on-off manually from within the cockpit. I didn´t like the switching on-off part...the reason I am going inside the rear fender. This setup also uses short oil lines.

Seems inside the fender wells wouldn't protect the oil cooler from getting damaged (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) I saw that the MOCAL kits for the 911s mount them in the front fender wells. Anything that gets picked up by the tires and flinged around the weel wells seems to be a threat to an oil cooler in there.

911 kits install in the front fender well....I am talking rear fender well using the Mocal 914 cooler kit. The cooler in this area would have to be installed sideways so the fins are not exposed to debriss. Besides, it is some distance in front of the rear passenger wheel.

[GTeener]

Trekkor seems to do OK with almost no venting at all, he just put the cooler in the front trunk.

Not exactly...

My HUGE cooler sits in front of three large exit holes.
I use the front grommet holes as my inlets.

So, I have fresh air in and hot air out.

On a track car, this has to be done. ( unless you like short sessions ) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)


KT

Trekkor, that looks nice.
Is it working well?
You obviously aren't concerned about have the full spare tire available for street use. But is there any room left for one in your front trunk?