Removing the Stock Oil Cooler, what is needed?

[Grant 302]

Thanks for all the shared data. I wouldn't worry about air in the cooler stream except maybe on startup.

Looks like I'll probably stick with the oil pre-warmer.

I think they are a vast improvement over the stock unit. (Vorshlag refers to the stock units as oil heaters.)

The sad truth might be that the stock cooler might be much more efficient when looking at just the oil side. Unfortunately, it does appear that the efficiency of the stock oil cooler over-taxes the engine coolant side.

I'm thinking I might go back to my old idea for a separate coolant system run through the stock oil cooler jacket. The whole system from a GT500 could probably be adapted and look 'factory' from above with an extra coolant reservoir. Hardest part will be making the connections to the oil cooler block.

 

[HackBoss2901]

Thanks for all the shared data. I wouldn't worry about air in the cooler stream except maybe on startup.

Looks like I'll probably stick with the oil pre-warmer.
The sad truth might be that the stock cooler might be much more efficient when looking at just the oil side. Unfortunately, it does appear that the efficiency of the stock oil cooler over-taxes the engine coolant side.

I'm thinking I might go back to my old idea for a separate coolant system run through the stock oil cooler jacket. The whole system from a GT500 could probably be adapted and look 'factory' from above with an extra coolant reservoir. Hardest part will be making the connections to the oil cooler block.

Grant, I've considered the same thing. My issue with this idea is all the cost and work required for an unproven idea. So far my answer has been to lower my shift points to 6500 which keeps the oil temps within reason, but totally kills the whole point in owning a Boss in the first place. I'm still leaning towards a Setrab 934 or 948 and keeping the oem cooler. Good luck either way!

 

[Black Boss]

The sad truth might be that the stock cooler might be much more efficient when looking at just the oil side. Unfortunately, it does appear that the efficiency of the stock oil cooler over-taxes the engine coolant side.

Based on my data from last weekend I think this is correct. Eliminating the stock cooler has a) Helped with Coolant temps and b) Eliminated a key failure point. The challenge now is to cool the oil. I have ordered the 48 row cooler and will swap out the 34 row.

Watching with interest, the oil to air kits you have put together are awesome. I think they are a vast improvement over the stock unit. (Vorshlag refers to the stock units as oil heaters.)
I'm thinking that most of the heat dissipated from the new oil to air cooler is now in the engine bay. Heating up everything.
Thinking a high flow grill, a 2013 GT500 fan and a venting hood would go along way in lowering water and oil temps along with this new oil cooler set up.
Short of a new hood on the 12s has any one tried to install 2013 vents in a 2012 hood ?
,

My car always ran hot and in addition to the 34 row cooler I'm running the FRPP high capacity radiator and Fan, Tiger hood, 302S Grille (with additional slots opened), Foam removed from F&R valley and intake and the latch opening closed off.

From a cooling/insulation standpoint this gets me to the 302S config. Anyone got any additional ideas?

It does seem that there is significant car to car variation. For those that run cooler, I will soon have a low mileage 34 row cooler for sale

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Information from Saturday's race:

30-minute sprint race
Data from final 5 laps
Ambient temps 75* F

• Setrab 925 Cooler in-series w/ OEM Oil-to-Water cooler; no tstat
• Stock BOSS radiator
• 302S Grille
• Tiger Hood
  

ECTs stable between 216-225* each lap
Oil Temps stable between 257-262* each lap (pretty consistent!), measured after cooler.

 

[VoodooBoss]

This really disappointing news and shifting at 6,500 is not an option I'm going to live with.

BB what fluid are you using in your radiator? BTW while I'm sure it doesn't hurt I've never seen anyone post results that the 302S hood reduced temps. It's main purpose is to reduce front end lift.

 

[HackBoss2901]

This really disappointing news and shifting at 6,500 is not an option I'm going to live with.

Rick I agree, shifting at 6500rpm is just a band aid deal with an issue Ford failed to correct. I've seen oil temps as high as 290 at ECR in the summer heat. 290 is not a temperature I'm comfortable with which why I lowered my shift points. An external oil cooler is on my wish list and I hope to start ordering parts soon! I'm leaving the oem cooler in place. Now I just need to decide on a 934 or 948, decision, decisions...

 

[VoodooBoss]

Information from Saturday's race:

30-minute sprint race
Data from final 5 laps
Ambient temps 75* F

• Setrab 925 Cooler in-series w/ OEM Oil-to-Water cooler; no tstat
• Stock BOSS radiator
• 302S Grille
• Tiger Hood
  

ECTs stable between 216-225* each lap
Oil Temps stable between 257-262* each lap (pretty consistent!), measured after cooler.

Hmmm. How much do you think the cooler drops the temps? Won't the peak temp be 280-290?

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Rick: Not sure, no real basis to speculate here. I wouldn't leave home without the cooler, however!

Application is important, however--if you're not going balls-out with the car you probably won't drive the temps as high.
And for what it's worth, I'm shifting at 7000 RPM unless I need the extra RPM overrun to avoid shifting before a braking zone.

I do have the Roush-style grille in the trailer now since it's going to get hotter here in AZ soon. Might need to put it back on the car depending on the oil temp trends.

 

[06mach1]

I would think that using the 934 cooler with the factory cooler would be overkill. Ford Racings cooler kit comes with the 915 cooler and I have not heard that their cooler setup does not work. If I keep my factory water/oil cooler, I will be using the 625 cooler. I don't want to cool the oil too much. As said before, I run 260-265 oil temps measured after the factory cooler. If blackboss is running 270 before the 934 cooler, what is he running after the cooler? 240 ish? I would think the 934 cooler has got to take 30 degrees out of the temp. Would be nice to know how much the 934 is lowering the oil temps. So what is the minimum oil temp that should be run? 240?

 

[steveespo]

235-240 is optimal oil temperature. 250-260 is OK, 270-280 is marginal and 290+ is dangerous for engine life. These are all with good quality synthetics, conventional oils take 10-15 degrees off the upper limit temps. With the Ford Racing 915 and water to oil cooler I saw 245 as my max and usually 235-240 at the end of a session. I still think with the 934 and no water cooler I'll see similar temps. I do know that during normal driving the oil gets up to 180 degrees and stays there once that t stat opens. Warms up much faster that with the water cooler and 915 no tstat setup.
Steve

 

[Black Boss]

This really disappointing news and shifting at 6,500 is not an option I'm going to live with.

BB what fluid are you using in your radiator? BTW while I'm sure it doesn't hurt I've never seen anyone post results that the 302S hood reduced temps. It's main purpose is to reduce front end lift.

Agree shifting at 6500 isn't an option. A couple of the tracks I run, I'm close to max rpm to avoid shifting just prior to the braking zone in 2 or 3 segments of the track..... Am running Stock coolant so Water wetter may be an option....

235-240 is optimal oil temperature. 250-260 is OK, 270-280 is marginal and 290+ is dangerous for engine life. These are all with good quality synthetics, conventional oils take 10-15 degrees off the upper limit temps. With the Ford Racing 915 and water to oil cooler I saw 245 as my max and usually 235-240 at the end of a session. I still think with the 934 and no water cooler I'll see similar temps. I do know that during normal driving the oil gets up to 180 degrees and stays there once that t stat opens. Warms up much faster that with the water cooler and 915 no tstat setup.
Steve

+1 on temps. I did not have Oil temp gauge last season, but hit 245F Coolant with the 915 in series with OEM cooler and all the other mods except Tiger hood and Foam removal. My projection is that Steve will be OK.

Some of us just have hotter cars :-\

 

[HackBoss2901]

It does seem that there is significant car to car variation. For those that run cooler, I will soon have a low mileage 34 row cooler for sale

BB I'll take the 934 off your hands. PM sent.

 

[2012-Boss]

Steve,

Are you measuring your temps before or after the cooler?

 

[steveespo]

Black Boss,
I've run Mocool coolant additive for the whole time and I believe it does help with coolant heat transfer. Worth a try.

 

[steveespo]

Steve,

Are you measuring your temps before or after the cooler?

After, that is the temp of the oil that the engine is "seeing" going back to the bearings and cylinder heads. I don't think there should be a huge delta T between per and post cooler but maybe 10 deg F. I wish a Ford power train engineer would chime in.

 

[2012-Boss]

I also think that Steve will be fine. I also think Black Boss' temps are not as bad as they initially sound.

I would expect a significant temperature drop post cooler. I do not think it is unreasonable to think that there is a 30 degree or more difference between the oil temps entering the cooler vs the temps exiting.

In other words, if you are measuring temps before the cooler (like me) and are seeing temps in the 270 or so range, it more than likely is not the end of the world. The oil going back into the engine is probably much cooler. Looking through posts from Cool Tech, other board members, and the Mishimoto test report seems to support this.

 

[Domestic Product]

Based on my data from last weekend I think this is correct. Eliminating the stock cooler has a) Helped with Coolant temps and b) Eliminated a key failure point. The challenge now is to cool the oil. I have ordered the 48 row cooler and will swap out the 34 row.

My car always ran hot and in addition to the 34 row cooler I'm running the FRPP high capacity radiator and Fan, Tiger hood, 302S Grille (with additional slots opened), Foam removed from F&R valley and intake and the latch opening closed off.

From a cooling/insulation standpoint this gets me to the 302S config. Anyone got any additional ideas?

It does seem that there is significant car to car variation. For those that run cooler, I will soon have a low mileage 34 row cooler for sale

What area of the country do you live in? Looks like you have done it all. Ever had the car over heat? This seems to be a tricky problem with the Boss.
Vorshlag will be coming out with their version of a oil cooler in the near future as the S550 will have the same oil heater on it. Interestingly their GT had little or no over heating till they installed the Boss oil cooler. Check out their forums on this.

 

[Grant 302]

What area of the country do you live in? Looks like you have done it all. Ever had the car over heat? This seems to be a tricky problem with the Boss.
Vorshlag will be coming out with their version of a oil cooler in the near future as the S550 will have the same oil heater on it. Interestingly their GT had little or no over heating till they installed the Boss oil cooler. Check out their forums on this.

Not surprised. My GT never burped the degas/expansion tank until after I put the heater on. And that was in ~72 degree weather at Laguna Seca.

Maybe a potential solution is to restrict the coolant flow to the 'heater'?

 

[302 Hi Pro]

This is one of the most interesting technical discussion I have seen any where. The information to eliminate the T-Stat makes sense to me as I did not see the this on the Boss Oil Cooler offered by FRPP. As far as the install instructions, I did not find that either. I wanted to see how the cooler was installed. Although the bracket pictured with the cooler kit suggest it is installed as I have seen most do on this forum. That is hanging the cooler from the upper radiator support and having the inlet and outlets positioned on the bottom of the cooler.

Looking at some of the more recent post it seems there is discussion to mount the cooler in a similar fashion as the original B9 oil cooler with the inlet at the bottom and the outlet at the top of the cooler. It seems to me this would eliminate any air pocket question.

I was also wondering why the FRPP oil cooler is much smaller than what most are installing on their mostly track cars. But with the temp readings now being reported during cool weather, one does have to wonder about oil temps during hot track days with ambient temps in the 90's.

I have been thinking about the coolant leaks, and I noted the only leaks I have seen is when the crimp aluminum hose fitting was making contact with the front sway bar. Inspection of my Boss has shown no contact of the fitting, but the rubber hose did have contact which I believe the addition of an insulator on the hose will prevent it from "rubbing through" leading to a failure. However, for $134, I have a spare OEM cooler assembly on the shelf.

As mentioned above, I was thinking about placement of the cooler on the left side of radiator support, and standing a 925 or 934 cooler on end that would place the inlet at the bottom of the cooler and the outlet would exit the cooler from the top. This would be without a T-Stat and in conjunction with the stock Boss cooler. Shouldn't this help to cool the oil enough to take some of the stress off of the cooling system thereby lowering overall coolant and oil temps? Not sure, but this is the way I am leaning.

Also has any one taken temp readings across the oil cooler with a laser pyrometer to measure the oil cooler effenciey?

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this topic.
Regards,
302 HP

 

[VoodooBoss]

The information to eliminate the T-Stat make sense to me as I did not see the this on the Boss Oil Cooler offered by them.

The idea of adding a t-stat is only if you remove the stock oil cooler which is what this specific thread is all about. If you remove the stock cooler, which actually helps bring the oil temps up to operating temp quickly, you'll want a t-stat otherwise it will take too long for the oil temp to rise to operating temperature especially if driving on the street.