Fan Assisted Oil Cooler Set-Up…?

[.grimace]

Just a few random comments:

- I agree with the everyone that a computer fan is likely not powerful enough. I was going to suggest FAL, but it seems like their smallest fan is 10 inches, which is too big. But you would want something rugged like this.

https://flex-a-lite.com/electric-fans/12-volt-electric-fans.html?width_estimated=171

- I would have concerns that a computer fan is not weatherproof. It's not made to handle water spray on rainy days like an automotive fan.

- The lower temp Spoon thermostat is not going to help you if you go on the track. If you are driving hard, then both the OEM and Spoon thermostats will be fully open and they will have the exact same result.

- I believe the HKS oil cooler comes with a thermostatically controlled valve, which means you wan't see much cooler temps during normal driving. You will only see the difference under harsh conditions. This is what you want. (Maybe this was already discussed and I missed it.)

agree to all. I never understand the idea of the Spoon or J's thermostat. It just opens a bit sooner but thats not the issue. The issue is how fast it can overheat the coolant once it is fully open.

Also I think all the kits I have seen have a thermostatically controlled valve to only open flow to the cooler when temps hit a certain range. I know my HKS and Greddy both did. Buddy used a generic one and it had it too.

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[Eugene_Fk8]

As seem several modification on the cooling, get a opend hood seems to be the most effecient. (with a race louver or just buy a fk7 hood and cut the hole)

Then, it will be tube&fin radiator (some issue with PWR's race radiator since they claim it may cause overheat in a humid environment)

Oil cooler will helps but in general people use it to mount the oil temp/pressure gauge. (for 19 or before model)

If that's not enough, water spraying or remove AC usually is the cheapest and effective way to add more cooling potential.

I remember some member have success with 20 mins on track no overheating ambient 30ish with just PWR and opened hood/grill with AC off, can't remember who precisely.

Around 26°C ambient, I personally got overheat around 15 mins ish where my oil temp is like 130°C, since I only have an oil cooler and larger grill so I'm happy for the result. My Varis hood is arrived and need to paint and wrap so will be able to see how much better in summer with an open hood.

 

[Dave B]

If you want to track your car in Sepang and keep your engine tune, you will need a better radiator and some form of hood venting (or better yet, hood louvers). I have asked about differences in oil temps, before and after the addition on an oil cooler and you seem to have some answers, at least according to LogR and the differences don't seem all that great. Likely this is related to the pretty crappy place to put the cooler. I live in a cold climate (although summer temps can hit 36 C (that is about 97 F for our friends in the USA) and have been very happy with the results of adding Trackspec hood vents but need something more aggressive (even with my stock motor) so will be going to a full Race Louver setup for this coming season. If the total cooling settles down, I would assume oil temps will as well but time will tell. Otherwise it is a PWR radiator for me which you would think wouldn't be necessary in Canada with a stock motor.

 

[Sam3]

some issue with PWR's race radiator since they claim it may cause overheat in a humid environment

I'm considering C&R (PWR) radiator (track version) and intercooler, and I'm concerned about this (even though it rarely gets hot and humid in SoCal). Do you have more info on this issue (links)?

 

[Eugene_Fk8]

I'm considering C&R (PWR) radiator (track version) and intercooler, and I'm concerned about this (even though it rarely gets hot and humid in SoCal). Do you have more info on this issue (links)?

It‘s on their website, I'll suggest you contact them directly since not sure how worst it can get. If you live in Socal where not much rain then pretty sure track version is not a problem daily, I know someone with the track version and dirve daily no issue in socal.

 

[Vincent@27WON]

agree to all. I never understand the idea of the Spoon or J's thermostat. It just opens a bit sooner but thats not the issue. The issue is how fast it can overheat the coolant once it is fully open.

Also I think all the kits I have seen have a thermostatically controlled valve to only open flow to the cooler when temps hit a certain range. I know my HKS and Greddy both did. Buddy used a generic one and it had it too.

Agree on the thermostats, I have seen a few cases where they have failed shut and make for some big problems. We don't run any thermostats on any of our cars.

 

[DRUSA]

The fan will not do much, if anything it may hurt the airflow more as mentioned by others. Cooling over a heat exchange like a radiator or any other cooler relies on pressure differentials between either side of the cooler to make it work. The greater the pressure difference, the more air will flow through it and the better it will work. This is why you sometimes see people put massive radiators on a car to prevent overheating and it doesn't work if there is a restriction behind or in front of it, you never changed the difference in pressure. You could have instead created a lower pressure area behind the radiator (ducting out via a drop vent hood, the "race louver vents" on hoods, etc) and more air will want to be sucked through it. This is why Honda added the hood scoop with ducting to the fenders, it's actually forcing air out of the engine bay and into the low pressure zones.

There is a great author, Julian Edgar (Modifying the Aerodynamics of Your Road Car) that has an entire youtube series as well with little 10min aero lessons, including these side mount oil coolers. You should watch a few, they are really great.

In short, this fan setup is not going to work well. Something you may want to look into if you don't want to mess with the fog light vents: I've noticed the standard hatchback 1.5T has a much smaller a/c condenser, about 2/3 size of the CTR one. You could buy the 1.5T condenser and the brackets, i think only the high side a/c line, and then run like a thin cooler between the intercooler and radiator in the dead space created by running the new, smaller condenser.

 

[Dave B]

. This is why Honda added the hood scoop with ducting to the fenders, it's actually forcing air out of the engine bay and into the low pressure zones.

When you look at the air ducting under the hood from the hood scoop, I would have thought is only helps drag by taking some of the high pressure air on top of the hood and draining it out the side vents.

 

[Untamed Driven]

Hello, people! Been busy with life amongst other things so I've been away for a bit.

But I'm back now! Anyways - here's an update on my current set-up since my previous post here:

Taking into considerations of all who've replied on this topic, I've decided to just abandon the assisting-fan set-up completely. As a matter of fact, after my last post (Which I believe was on the 18th of March...?), literally - the fan ceased to operate the next Morning.

In a span of 5 months (As long as I had installed the Oil Cooler), this fan had stopped working twice. Somehow, it was wired by the original installer into the factory Fuse Box. First time it stopped working, was down to loose wiring. But on this second time, I believe an end-connection plugged into one of the slots in the Fuse Box actually got burnt and short-circuited, slightly melting that slot. (As circled in the attached picture for reference) Hence, the fan stopped working. (Sorry, not an Electrical Expert, so I'm unable to explain in detail)

As I have no intentions to deal with this fan anymore, I had it completely removed. Along with it, I've also deleted the factory Fog-lights on this Oil Cooler side, opening up a channel to let natural air flow directly into the Oil Cooler core. (I've gotta say, after removing the fog-lights, this is quite a big opening...almost as big as the core itself! And to anyone wondering: No, removing the fog-lights, even turning it on, didn't popped any warnings on the dash...)

Last time I'm here, admittedly, I didn't much about the specifics of the fan I had. On observation now, it some kind of a DC Brushless 12V fan, usually meant for computer hard-drive usage. (E.g. As a CPU fan)

In order to fit the fan, unfortunately, quite a chunk of the original HKS oil cooler kit's upper-ducting was cut up. The wiring connection to the fuse box powering the fan, frankly...also looked ghetto as hell (Wish I had taken enough pictures before I had it removed to show. Literally, was 2 wires running above the fans naked, upwards all the way into the Fuse Box). Amongst these reasons, and frankly agreeing personally that this particular fan is probably never really strong enough for automotive usage, is why I've decided to rather just do without it completely.

For now, I'm gonna try and run the car as it is and see if it'll make a noticeable difference.

As always, I really appreciate all the feedbacks and advices everyone had contributed here!

But unfortunately, to the few who recoomended - I do not have adequate resources nor expertise at the moment to try and continue improving or fabbing up an efficient Fan-Assisting set-up for this Oil Cooler. My apologies.

 

[TonyTheTiger57]

SO my question is: Is it really a good idea to cut a hole in the wheel splash shield? That seems like a big no-no in my book. Look at how dirty those splash shields get from road grime, dirt, mud, etc. Now all of that mess will make its way into the fins of that cooler.

 

[Untamed Driven]

- I would have concerns that a computer fan is not weatherproof. It's not made to handle water spray on rainy days like an automotive fan.

- The lower temp Spoon thermostat is not going to help you if you go on the track. If you are driving hard, then both the OEM and Spoon thermostats will be fully open and they will have the exact same result.

- I believe the HKS oil cooler comes with a thermostatically controlled valve, which means you wan't see much cooler temps during normal driving. You will only see the difference under harsh conditions. This is what you want. (Maybe this was already discussed and I missed it.)

Yes, the fans most likely aren't. But when I still had it, in the location it was, it was quite enclosed. I've been through a few rain-storms with it whilst it was working, it held up. But of course, you have a point here.

As some others that followed who pointed it out, yes - the HKS kit does come with a thermostat itself. So...thinking about it now, you also have a point here. However, in my case, I didn't really saw any noticeable difference in delaying the time it took to reach a high oil temp under harsh driving. That was the main thing I was disappointed by with my set-up.

So...about the thermostat. Basically, how I felt it worked for me, was because since they opened coolant flow earlier and lowered coolant temps on idle, this effect brought down the idling oil temps as well. Thus, it felt like that gave me more "room" to drive hard, because there's a slightly wider range to go before I may still inevitably hit high coolant and oil temperature. In the context of maybe doing a track-day, I felt it's like something which is able to "buy" me more laps (Even if it might've been just 1 more...). Not exactly something to completely and directly beat the heat.

With the thermostat in place, according to LogR, I was still hitting 120 degree-cel Oil Temps after a prolonged session of hard driving, as expected. Albeit, I found it much harder now to raise the coolant temps past 100 degree cel.

 

[Untamed Driven]

As seem several modification on the cooling, get a opend hood seems to be the most effecient. (with a race louver or just buy a fk7 hood and cut the hole)

If that's not enough, water spraying or remove AC usually is the cheapest and effective way to add more cooling potential.

I remember some member have success with 20 mins on track no overheating ambient 30ish with just PWR and opened hood/grill with AC off, can't remember who precisely.

Around 26°C ambient, I personally got overheat around 15 mins ish where my oil temp is like 130°C, since I only have an oil cooler and larger grill so I'm happy for the result. My Varis hood is arrived and need to paint and wrap so will be able to see how much better in summer with an open hood.

Unfortunately, with how hot it can get in the day with my local climate, removing the AC system is definitely not something I can consider, especially on a road-car. But I agree, the benefits of removing the AC system for cooling is definitely there. It'll probably allow me to run certain aftermarket radiators with super thick core efficiently.

Yes, I think having a vented bonnet to help with dissipating trapped heat in the engine bay to improve cooling would certainly help. Logically, it makes a lot of sense afterall. However, from experience, the difference isn't exactly measurable by numbers.

To just experiment this, I actually bought a replica-Varis wet-carbon bonnet. (Yes, I know, it's a replica. But excuse me for a bit here - it was something readily available local to me that I could try out on the car, and definitely less troublesome than sourcing for a spare bonnet to cut up)

Varis seems to make the best designed, IMO. A large open vent, right above the charge-pipe, which is right aboved where the turbocharger is - it should also be this area, that during hard driving, most of the heat waste is being produced.

Down the line, I probably will try ordering and shipping in a genuine piece. As long as I can come around to the waiting time for one of these...

 

[metal_driver]

Let us know what if you noticed improvements in cooling with the hood on now.

 

[haltamer]

A fan based setup is probably still possible using some more dedicated motorsport products, Like this: https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/revotec-small-diameter-cooling-fans-2012122/

However, in the use cases you describe (High sustained speeds), impact is going to be fairly negligible.

You may be better served "deleting" the air curtain and redirecting those inlets to run via the oil cooler as well - That could be accomplished just with an extra bit of ducting panel.

Lowering your ECTs should be the bigger focus IMO -Modern full synthetics (Even 0W20) are capable right up to 200c, so your current temperatures aren't a huge cause for concern (Though I understand the desire to lower them)

There is a standard Water/Oil cooler as part of the coolant circuit, as well as a water/oil transmission cooler - Dropping your ECTs benefits not only the overall engine temperature, but also your engine and gear oil temperatures.

As others have mentioned (And you have done), Vented bonnets are a good place to start - It would also be worth strongly considering an upgraded radiator.

The secondary front mounted radiator mentioned earlier in the thread is an excellent idea; Not only increasing the overall system capacity (Delaying heatsoak), but adding a "Pre-Condenser" radiator without having to completely remove the AC system (Though it may reduce efficiency a touch)

Other heat management also helps quite a bit in my opinion; Turbo blankets / hard lagging, Insulation of the coolant lines etc. - The turbo being directly adjacent to the coolant piping, intake piping etc. is a source of the problem, especially when you compare the amount of turbo insulation Honda use compared to other OEMs - I've seen a number of OEM employments of hard-lagging even in non-performance applications.

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