Posts
The upper radiator hose on a Chevy / Holden WM and WN Caprice PPV has a tee in it.
This is for the oil cooler.
Unlike stock oil coolers I've had before, this one is under the car near the oil filter to one side of the oil pan.
I've had oil to air coolers that ran oil from the oil filter housing to a mini-radiator in front of the radiator.
I've had oil to water to air coolers that ran oil from the oil filter housing to one of the radiator tanks then to a mini-radiator in front of the radiator.
I've had oil to water coolers that ran oil from the oil filter housing to one of the radiator tanks.
The PPV one runs oil into and out of the cooler from a port near the oil filter. Water runs from a fitting on the side of the block, down to the cooler, then forward to the tee on the upper hose.
I've read a lot of paranoia about it, but never heard about an actual failure.
Lots of people have pulled them because nearly all headers for the car interfere with the cooler, never mind making more radiant heat right next to it than cast manifolds.
A couple of people have gotten cooling issues by adding an oil to air cooler in front of the radiator after deleting the stock cooler from stacking. TANSTAAFL.
The C4 Z51 oil cooler I added to my (not originally Z51) C4 is fed coolant from a T on the right side of the engine near the water pump and has a line that runs to the cooler which mounts under the oil filter. A return line for the coolant runs back to the other side of the water pump somewhere. I've never had to mess with the return side. I had a brass T that broke in half on the feed side that I had to replace. As far as I could tell there must have been a manufacturing/casting defect in the first T since it should have been sturdy enough. It definitely helps oil temperatures. I was seeing them creep up to as high as 260F before and they rarely get over 240 now, even when really pushing the car hard. Of course the trade off is that the oil heat is going into the cooling system. But as I said in a previous post, that has had a bunch of upgrades to compensate.
ReplyDelete-swj
The one platform I could make a comparison on was the VW Rabbit/Jetta/Scirocco because my 78 Scirocco didn't have an oil cooler and my 81 did. This was VW's stock oil to water setup and I noticed faster warmup and more stable oil temperature on the street. Track cars,usually had an oil to air cooler.
ReplyDelete