Is an oil cooler necessary?

[David228cx]

I am thinking on installing one. After the last track day which had warmer temperatures than expected by this time of the year, I couldn't do almost a full lap withouth the oil being quite hot and k.control reaching 1.X

Usually, during autum, winter or spring cold days I could do around 3-4 laps with the current cooling mods I have.

What about The greddy one with a thermostat?

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[ManitobaSI]

In my experience an oil cooler can block flow to the radiator. Perhaps another alternative would be an open grille to get more air flow to the radiator, remove thermal insulation under the hood or get a vented hood to release the trapped air.
Our grilles are very restrictive for air flow. Once air is in it will need a place to exit.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

A more open upper grille definitely helps on these cars. For a well tuned stock turbo car a cooler may not be needed unless you're tracking in pretty high ambient temps. If you're pushing more power with a larger turbo your oil temps will be higher and a cooler isn't a bad idea at all.

 

[David228cx]

I already have a more open grille, plus 27won intake, PRL intercooler, mishimoto radiator.
I have the TSP stage 1 at the moment. I have the W1 on a shelf for the moment. I had it installed last year but decided to stay with the stock turbo for a while (the last engine bent a rod, long story).

It was quite hot for an october here in Spain.
But I think the main problem is the engine bay holds up a lot of heat.

I have the stock cat and turbo back in there again, but back when I last tracked the car in february having the sporty cat with the exhaust heat wrap and removing the skid plate helped. I could manage almost 4-5 laps with very very decent temperatures.
It was 10-15 degrees celsius colder as well anyway.

I want to be able to complete more than one lap without getting so much oil heat soak that it seems the car has 140cv , which in winter or autumn/spring is usually well here but it wasn't the case that last day. I never track the car on summer.

From this point on it's either oil cooler, different hood with vents, spacing the hood to remove heat through the windshield or a combination of all of those.

Anyone from here is running an oil cooler successfully? I've seen issues with MAPerformance installation on some other thread, and most of the options without a thermostat don't seem good.

Fan control settings with Ktuner help a lot. Water temps were very good across the day.

It takes up to 15 minutes or so to heat up the oil as it is now. With an oil cooler without thermostat, it may not get up to temps on the street or take too long.

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Are you running an oil temp gauge? Do you know what oil temps you're getting up to?

These cars don't have an oil temp sensor from the factory and it won't pull power without seeing high coolant temps. A vented hood would definitely help but don't space the rear of the hood, it hurts cooling because the base of the windshield is a high pressure zone so it ends up reducing flow through the engine bay.

If you're seeing reduced power from heat soak it is because of high charge temps. What are you seeing for an IAT2 reading? The PRL intercooler is decent but on a hot day you'll still see high charge temps if you're only running gasoline. Ethanol does a world of help to keep charge temps in check so if you have access to E85 I would consider giving that a shot.

I run the MAP oil cooler on our FK7 and haven't had any perceivable issues with it.

 

[David228cx]

Are you running an oil temp gauge? Do you know what oil temps you're getting up to?

These cars don't have an oil temp sensor from the factory and it won't pull power without seeing high coolant temps. A vented hood would definitely help but don't space the rear of the hood, it hurts cooling because the base of the windshield is a high pressure zone so it ends up reducing flow through the engine bay.

If you're seeing reduced power from heat soak it is because of high charge temps. What are you seeing for an IAT2 reading? The PRL intercooler is decent but on a hot day you'll still see high charge temps if you're only running gasoline. Ethanol does a world of help to keep charge temps in check so if you have access to E85 I would consider giving that a shot.

I run the MAP oil cooler on our FK7 and haven't had any perceivable issues with it.

Yes, I am running an oil temp sensor in the oilpan. That should read lower temperatures than what you'd get somewhere else in the engine but it gives you an idea of what temperature the oil is when exiting the inside of the engine. After one lap I was getting around 130 degrees and increasing. I couldn't do 2 laps without not wanting to hurt the engine due to temps.

Coolant temps were good and dropped very quickly (90-100 celsius). IAT and IAT2 were similar but not very very high (30-40 celsius). 10-15 degrees over ambient temperature.

I do think this car has a built temp sensor within the oil level sensor (EU spec FK7s have oil level sensor in the oil pan). Honda diagnostics system for this car show an oil temp value. Wether or not this is calculated or read from that sensor I don't know. Also even it if is real I don't know if that is used for anything at all. But it's the same part number the FK8 restyling adds that wasn't there before in previous year models

Unfortunately we do not have high ethanol blends around here. Only E5-E10 in regular gas. 91-93 octane.

How much time does it take to heat the oil with the MAP kit? What about in the winter?

How do you change the oil with it? Do you mix old oil with new or remove the lines and cooler for each change to change it fully?

 

[Austin@Wunderladen Racing]

Yes, I am running an oil temp sensor in the oilpan. That should read lower temperatures than what you'd get somewhere else in the engine but it gives you an idea of what temperature the oil is when exiting the inside of the engine. After one lap I was getting around 130 degrees and increasing. I couldn't do 2 laps without not wanting to hurt the engine due to temps.

Coolant temps were good and dropped very quickly (90-100 celsius). IAT and IAT2 were similar but not very very high (30-40 celsius). 10-15 degrees over ambient temperature.

I do think this car has a built temp sensor within the oil level sensor (EU spec FK7s have oil level sensor in the oil pan). Honda diagnostics system for this car show an oil temp value. Wether or not this is calculated or read from that sensor I don't know. Also even it if is real I don't know if that is used for anything at all. But it's the same part number the FK8 restyling adds that wasn't there before in previous year models

Unfortunately we do not have high ethanol blends around here. Only E5-E10 in regular gas. 91-93 octane.

How much time does it take to heat the oil with the MAP kit? What about in the winter?

How do you change the oil with it? Do you mix old oil with new or remove the lines and cooler for each change to change it fully?

130C is definitely up there, what oil are you using?

I've yet to see any version of these cars with a temp sensor. The oil temp value is calculated on the FK8 so I'd wager it's the same story on your car.

I haven't datalogged oil temp, the cooler was on the car when I bought it, the PO lived in California and didn't have high temps tracking during the warmer months. For the winter I put a block off plate in front of the cooler (when I remember haha).

I don't do anything special for changing the oil, just change it as normal. The half quart or so that stays in the cooler isn't the end of the world.

 

[GrDeleto]

Are you running an oil temp gauge? Do you know what oil temps you're getting up to?

These cars don't have an oil temp sensor from the factory and it won't pull power without seeing high coolant temps. A vented hood would definitely help but don't space the rear of the hood, it hurts cooling because the base of the windshield is a high pressure zone so it ends up reducing flow through the engine bay.

If you're seeing reduced power from heat soak it is because of high charge temps. What are you seeing for an IAT2 reading? The PRL intercooler is decent but on a hot day you'll still see high charge temps if you're only running gasoline. Ethanol does a world of help to keep charge temps in check so if you have access to E85 I would consider giving that a shot.

I run the MAP oil cooler on our FK7 and haven't had any perceivable issues with it.

Guess the only shame is that only one oil cooler has a built in thermostat, Greddy, and it was discontinued.

 

[David228cx]

130C is definitely up there, what oil are you using?

I've yet to see any version of these cars with a temp sensor. The oil temp value is calculated on the FK8 so I'd wager it's the same story on your car.

I haven't datalogged oil temp, the cooler was on the car when I bought it, the PO lived in California and didn't have high temps tracking during the warmer months. For the winter I put a block off plate in front of the cooler (when I remember haha).

I don't do anything special for changing the oil, just change it as normal. The half quart or so that stays in the cooler isn't the end of the world.

Amsoil signature series 0w30.

The 0w20 was working nicely but I wanted some more protection when hot.

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