He used our oil cooler, thermostatic oil cooler adapter, hose and fittings. But he had to fabricate the mounting brackets and the shroud himself. Send us an email or a PM and we can help you piece together what you need.

 

I didn't know that, thank you!

 

So, I have an Improved Racing oil cooler (and 212 t-stat), and already had it installed at a 45 degree angle to hopefully allow more air into the rad behind it, but still found my oil temps higher than I like on track.
I thought I could do more and I'm just now in the process of laying it down horizontally instead, to allow air to exit underneath and expose more of the rad.

I intend to test it out later this month at Mosport. While temps will be much cooler than a month ago at WGI, I do have data from previously in similar ambient, so I should be able to have a reasonable comparison...all things being equal.

I was going to make a separate post about this after I've completed and tested my little project (and may still do so), but here are some pics of my work in progress.

I still need to cut out my APR splitter's undertray which would normally cover the exit, as well as install a small wicker ahead of the opening.
Hopefully I'll get around to that later today. TBD


laid down horizontally

underneath view

protective grill

 

I would actually test this out without an air dam in front of the cooler first. Other customers that had good results laying the cooler flat did not have an air dam in front of the cooler, but kept the factory in front of the radiator. The air dam in front of the radiator creates a low pressure zone behind the radiator to suck air through it, but it also creates a high pressure zone in front of the radiator. It's possible that this high pressure zone is actually causing air to flow up through the cooler, instead of down, but I'm not sure. If this is the case, it would be more ideal for aero downforce. If you tested with and without an air dam in front of the cooler, that would be really great. This is something we haven't tested yet but we still need to buy a C6 shop car to do further development on for this kit.

 

Very interesting! Thanks for mentioning this!

I’ve just cut the opening in my APR splitter’s small undertray, but won’t attach the small 1” wicker now.

i’ll prepare it to be easily bolted on with speed-clips at the track however, and test back to back if possible.

Hopefully conditions will be consistent enough to monitor any temperature differential as well as any dynamic difference (hope my *** is sensitive enough)

thanks again for this insight!!

 

Fantastic! Please get back to us with the results. Very curious to see what happens.

 

Will do! My little plastic wicker flap is already stashed in my ‘track toolbox’!

 

just thought I'd add the photo of what it looks like with the little wicker installed on the undertray. I can't wait to try this out!

 

Looks like I was wrong earlier about not putting an air dam in front of the oil cooler. I was re-reading our other customers post and he said he actually moved the air dam in front of the oil cooler, and that's when he got great results. Here's a link to the post: https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...post1600211247

So definitely try it with that second air dam in front of the cooler first. I would still be curious to know what difference it makes without it though, or with the front one and without the one under the radiator, etc. Keep us posted!

 

Thanks Michael! Yah...I was lying on my back underneath and thinking about it...I definitely want a low pressure area there to help extract air down through the cooler.
It was actually @Mordeth who explained this to me last year...but i wanted to try the cooler at 45 degrees first.

 

I could be wrong, but as I see it, the gurney flap in front of it would be to pull more air through it (from engine bay to under car).
the dam behind it would try to push air through it (up into the engine compartment).


I think you need to move the large dam in front of the cooler to create that large low pressure area behind it that would pull air through the cooler from the engine compartment.


I’d be curious to see what yarn tufts do if you could get some GoPro video while you drive.

 

Yes, you may be right. Maybe there should only be one air dam in front of the cooler. The two air dams with the current setup may be working against each other. It may also work with the large air dam under the radiator if it actually pushes air up through the cooler and out the radiator. I'm not sure if it works that way though. It would be great to see test results for each combo of air dam and see what works the best.

 

The small wicker ahead of the cooler can't pull air from the engine bay, because it is not under the engine bay.
It is under the air intake tunnelling behind the grill.
This is ahead of the radiator separated from the engine bay along with radiator shrouding...which BTW, is fully sealed now to keep air from escaping the intake tunnel.
.
The flap may not even be necessary as this is a high pressure area funneling incoming cooling air directly to the radiator.
I was actually thinking that 'too much' air destined for the rad, may actually be escaping via my new opening this way (although it would have to turn 90 degrees down).
But compared to when the cooler was previously almost altogether blocking airflow to the actual rad, I don't think this is an issue. And its to this path of airflow that my wicker presumably adds negative pressure to draw it out underneath

Its the large OE airdam that pulls through the rad and engine bay (separated from the area ahead of it.
These are two separated low pressure areas. One before the rad (under oil cooler), one under the rad and rad shrouding.
Removing the airdam under the rad would be a problem, as we need its low pressure to evacuate air having passed through the radiator into the engine bay.

Mordeth had tested this and came to this conclusion....with very successful results.

Unfortunately its not really feasible to mount a go-pro and tufts anywhere underneath with approx 3" ground clearance at 150mph.

Moreover, the forecast for my test day on Thursday is cold, maybe 60f. So I surely won't have heat management issues. Nonetheless, i hope to be able to discern a trend, as I've run in these conditions before.

I went on a 200mile roadtrip last week (75mph) for a bit of a normal cruise, with one or two, quick 2nd gear pulls ....just to test a few other things out.
But ambient was a cool 65f and I couldn't get the water nor oil above 195~200f. In both cases it was obviously their respective thermostats just maintaining the minimum temperatures.
This doesn't tell me much, but it does seems I haven't messed anything up.

An additional thought worth mentioning is that if I were to do my project all over again, I would have tried mounting the OEM cooler this same way, horizontally with the IR thermostat kit and hoses/adapters. Instead, I ordered the larger cooler afterwards...and may have added to the cooling problem

Hope all this makes some sense

 

You want max negative pressure from the large airdam under the rad to create low pressure to suck hot air out from the rad and engine bay...hence that huge OEM annoying flexy rubber airdam that bottoms everywhere.

I don't think you want to try and "pushes air up through the cooler and out the radiator". You'd be trying to reverse the flow of air blasting in directly through the grill.
Moreover, the object is not to push the same air that has heated after going through the oil cooler into the rad,
If I wanted to do that, I'd figure a scoop over the entire oil cooler opening...but that would be loading the radiator with heated air. again.

I think...

 

I think you're right that the ram air coming from the front of the car has more pressure than the high pressure zone created in front of the big air dam. But the air dam does still create high pressure in front of it, which would slow down the air flow through the cooler to the bottom of the air, versus not having it at all. I think a good test might actually be no air dam at all as well.

It's just really hard to say with aero, there can be a lot of things happening you are not aware of.

 

Absolutely true. some people run without that big airdam. On street anyway.
But I'm not sure that it doesn't help evacuate engine bay heat. It must contribute to low pressure under the car. Perhaps an aero stability thing...if not cooling.
I keep falling back on the fact that this worked for Mordeth and he'd tested it extensively.
If anything, I'm bringing another smaller 1/2" wicker to put ahead of the oil cooler. The current one is 1". These should be easy to swap quickly, just drive the front onto the trailer ramps and 5 quick fasteners

 

I am sure the air dam helps with the factory setup. I am just not sure it's the best solution with the cooler up front. That said plenty of cars have no OEM air dams under the radiator as well.

And you're right, Mordeth tested this and the air dam worked well for him, but I am unclear on what he did exactly. I think he may actually have moved the large air dam in front of the oil cooler?

 

Correct! he removed the factory air dam and left just the one ahead of the repositioned oil cooler. I'll remove the OE flap under the rad

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...r-mods-16.html

 

Oh nice, I didn't see that post. Yes, that looks like the best setup.

 

actually I decided to leave it the way I had it after all. It looks to me that the large OE air dam is very functional with regards to cleaning up airflow under the car (drag, high speed stability).
plus to remove that one, I’d have to pull the splitter off again.
Ill try it like this for now first.

Forecast is only 57f.
In similar temps previously, water went to 225f, but oil still went to 235f…so I kinda have a comparison to gauge by.

thanks for your thoughts.