legacycentral bbs

I don't know that anyone has ever done this... probably for good reason

I have an AT radiator in my MT car right now, with the tranny cooler lines just blocked off.

I was wondering if this would be an improvement over the factory water-to-oil setup, as well as using an otherwise worthless component.

Not sure what oil filter adapter I'd use, as I'm reading a lot of negative reviews on Mishimoto and don't have the $ for Process West.

Thoughts?

Do you plan on excess oil heat issues? You don't want to overcool it. You'd also need to account for the extra oil volume and I'm not sure what it would do as far as pressure goes.

Probably not worth it. Probably more of a create a problem then prevent a problem kind of "thing". Best "thing" to do is not do this

Ive broken apart a radiator before. The cooler is pretty small. I'd worry that it wouldn't flow enough for high RPMs

If using an auxiliary oil cooler, it is best to install it before the oil to water heat exchanger so it will get back to proper temp before the rest of the motor.


Or get the thermostatically controlled sandwich plate from Mocal. Those are nice.

well where would you pull oil pressure from. oil coolers are cheap enough that it would be cool to run an oil-air if it was easily doable but i can't think of anyplace on an NA engine that would be easy to run oil lines off of without drilling and tapping. oil pressure sender with a T maybe for pressure side and drill/tap into valve cover? def. not worth it to run the radiator cooler imho.

Most of the coolers are designed to pull oil from a sandwich type adapter between the block and oil filter.

Steve: I'm assuming the higher CR will generate more heat, and I'll assuredly have my foot in it more (maybe even some track time?). Do you think that would warrant extra cooling?

ciper: what pressure do you think the A/T cooler lines are under? I can't find A/T oil pump pressure output even in the FSMs. But I know A/Ts in general can see 70psi or more internally, so I would think it would be enough for the engine.

If this would reduce total oil pressure, would a turbo oil pump bring it back up sufficiently?

Yeah, I'd have to come up with a sandwich adapter somewhere.

If my understanding is correct, the oil never leaves the factory oil cooler adapter; the coolant comes to it. So that's no good for an external oil cooler.

I'm sure the unit could hold the pressure. I think you should visit the junk yard and break apart a radiator to see what this cooler looks like and then you might decide against using it. It is VERY small.

I think you'd be fine with synthetic oil. What kind of CR are you talking about?

I was thinking about this too, but the flared hose fittings had me worried. I may still try some really high quality hose and clamps.

I like the idea since it would still act as an oil warmer in the winter and I think it it would cool more, although maybe not by much, than the oem cooler.

The oem cooler is small too and only has the oil/water cooling. The trans cooler would have some oil/water and a decent amount of oil/air.

Yeah if you're going to spend money you might as well get an actual separate oil cooler, but if you already have the trans cooler and it might not be a bad idea.

The transmission cooler inside the radiator is much smaller than the OE oil cooler.

The stock one is just a 3" dia 3" tall cylinder right? I haven't seen the inside of one, but there isn't much volume there to design a whole lot of surface area for heat transfer. Even if the trans cooler only goes across and loops back once its still going to quickly be 3ft or so of tubing. It is pretty narrow tubing though......

I don't have the OEM cooler, so this was just one of those ideas where I thought i might use what I already had installed. I ever get an oil temp sensor setup I might try this trans cooler idea just for kicks.

most external trans oil cooler lines operate at less than 30psi. MY RMS was like 20psi, and from flushing the 4EAT, I'd say it's around there too. Internal Pressures on AT trans missions can exceed 250psi+.

vica153 wrote:Even if the trans cooler only goes across and loops back once its still going to quickly be 3ft or so of tubing. It is pretty narrow tubing though......

The transmission cooler is probably 4 inches long at most. Measure the distance between the two hose fittings and thats how long it is.

Take a thin piece of copper pipe that is one inch diameter. Put another peice of pipe inside of it that is 15/16 diameter. Pinch the pipes to each other so there is a tiny air pocket inside and leave the center open. That is the design of the factory trans cooler.

All of you need to break a radiator open so you can see what it looks like and Im sure this idea will quickly die!