Ariel.Club Forum

I'm looking for feedback on oil coolers.

I only use my Atom 3 245 on track. Completely stock the water temp was creeping up to 120°C so I decided to do 3 things. 1, put new coolant and open up the nose cone so I get more air flow to the radiator. 2, mount a small oil cooler. I mounted the oil cooler right under the snorkel, as in the picture below. 3, mount an oil temp and pressure sensor.



In the process I also removed the oil-to-water heater/cooler that is mounted under the oil filter, as I figured the dedicated oil cooler would take care of the oil temps.

With this setup, oil temps still got up to around 140°, so I decided I needed a bigger oil cooler. I got a 34 row one and mounted it on the roll cage, basically above the passengers head. This location was deemed unsafe as the passenger would get sprayed with hot oil in case of leaks, so I moved it back as shown in this picture.



Oil temps are now down to 120° and water is running at 95°, but visually this solution isn't the best.

Can anyone show me (picture) where the Cup oil cooler was mounted and whether it still had the oil-to-water heat exchanger? Any other feedback on where to mount which oil cooler or how to keeps oil temps down is much appreciated. I would rather not mount the cooler in front of one of the rear wheels (which is a popular location), as I don't want it to get damaged by debris.

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that as far as I recall, I don't think the Cup cars were fitted with an oil cooler.

I've looked through my photos taken at Cup events and don't see any sign of one.
They did have an Oil Catch can fitted to collect oil vapours to prevent oil contamination of the track.
This first appeared on the V8.

The 3.5R with the side pods was fitted with an air to air charge cooler and also an oil cooler located inside the pods.

In 2016, I believe Ariel started to fit an oil cooler to the Atom. Some on here posted that their new Atom was built with this as standard (not an option).

Here's someone's car I photo'd showing the oil cooler shrouded with a fan mounted at the rear, side.

I’d be tempted to keep the factory oil to water heat exchanger and add / replace the radiator & fan with better ones, it’s been discussed here a few times by people running in hotter climates etc. I’ve also seen a few people suggest adding the EWP setup if it’s not present, as this apparently also helps keeps the temps in check.

Interested to know how you get on!

Here's some photos of the Oil Catch Can I mentioned above :-