Oil cooler?

[Mr.Woolery]

Has anyone considered adding an oil cooler to an Atom?  I was thinking about post-delivery modifications, and one that came to mind was fitting an either an oil cooler, twin oil coolers, or an oil cooler/supplemental radiator to the car.

I figured I could probably make an oil cooler/side panel setup that would mimic the side panel intake scoops found on F1 cars.  I figured the scoops could be ducted to either twin oil coolers, or to an oil cooler on one side/supplemental radiator on the other.  The side panels could even be designed to be aerodynamically functional with the right brain matter thrown at it.  I figure I could fabricate something out of CF given enough time and materials.

The cost: approximately 10 pounds of added weight, disturbing the pure lines of the original design, might look like poop, lots of time and effort to fabricate.
The benefit:  additional cooling, a functional alternative to the current side panels, a furthering of the "formula 1" look for the car.

Any thoughts?

[AtomFun]

upnatom has oil coolers fitted to his 300 Atom. I don't know more than that other than they were clearly visable when we were at Haynes track day on Saturday.

If I've got a picture that shows them, I'll post it here.

[dingo]

I looked into Setrab coolers, http://www.setrab.com/setrab.htm
decided it was not worthwhile for (at least) two reasons.
The place to put even a small one is extremely limited even if you pass lines all the way up front.
Plumbing is (on the Honda) right beside the belts where there's even less room.
On top of rear engine cover creates access problems.
And the oil does not run really hot (max I've seen is 92 Deg C). 
If someone figures a good solution, then by all means share.

[Richard Marler]

Upnatom's cooler is fitted left/front of the engine, so the plumbing doesn't travel far at all. Not sure how much air flow it gets or how much effect it has on oil temps.

[upnatom]

I don't think that there is much need for an oil cooler unless you've got a supercharger. Even with the blower, many people say there is still no need - Ariel add a electrical water pump to keep temps down instead. Other people think that cooling the oil is important because the pistons are mainly cooled by oil jets. We've gone for an oil cooler 'just to be sure'. We've only had the cooler fitted for a month or so and have only done a couple of track days in that time, in both cases the ambient temperature was pretty low, so it hasn't really had a proper test yet.

[Mr.Woolery]

I don't think finding a place for a supplemental cooler/rad will be a problem at all.  A small cooler (Roughly 8x10x1") should be an easy item to fit.  I was thinking about placing them on the lower porton of the body frame, just in front of the rear suspension arm attachment points.  They could also be covered with proper looking ducts/intakes to direct the airflow through them.  The main challenge I see here would be mounting the cooler/ducting and plumbing the engine bay so that it all looks like it's supposed to be there.

I really don't know if it's going to be necessary to take this idea seriously until I've put the car through it's paces under hot climate conditions.  It's really just an exersize in "what if" at this point anyway.

[FAST BUCK]

i'd concentrate on leaving a depoist on the Atom first!

[Monza]

Remember that the basis of the oil filter is water-cooled on the K20A, so it helps no to go up.

[Mr.Woolery]

[quote="FAST BUCK"]
i'd concentrate on leaving a depoist on the Atom first!
[/quote]


Just waiting for the newly printed checks to arrive (established an equity account to buy the car)...
...in the meantime, I'm just thinking & posting out loud.

[FAST BUCK]

of course, sorry for that last post, i've had a bad week, think out loud all you like

[Mr.Woolery]

[quote="FAST BUCK"]
of course, sorry for that last post, i've had a bad week, think out loud all you like
[/quote]

No worries...

[BenElliottRacing]

have you considered fitting an oil to water cooler. very popular in the elise.

[Mr.Woolery]

[quote="BenElliottRacing"]
have you considered fitting an oil to water cooler. very popular in the elise.
[/quote]
No, I haven't thought of that yet.  I'm unsure what the temperature differentials would be expected between the two, so I haven't considered it yet.

[BenElliottRacing]

Scuffers uses one in his elise and reported oil temps no higher than 115 degrees at the silverstone 24 hour race earlier this year. might be worth a chat with him. Just dont mention lateral G.

[Scuffers]

[quote="BenElliottRacing"]
Scuffers uses one in his elise and reported oil temps no higher than 115 degrees at the silverstone 24 hour race earlier this year. might be worth a chat with him. Just dont mention lateral G.
[/quote]


Oil water coolers only work if the main water rad is up to the extra heat load, the Atom one is somewhat marginal to start with (to put this into perspective, the std Elise rad is something like 3 times the effective area).

If the rad was up to it, oil/water is the way to go as the water adds a lot of stability to the oil temp.

I specâ??ed the oil cooler on upnatom's atom as the std Honda donut cooler is NOT up to coping with constant track use, let alone a SC on top of this.

the pistons on the K20 rely on oil cooling, if the oil temp get's out of hand, then they will not get cooled, this will expand in the bore, and eventually pick-up, seize, and then get ripped apart (I am 99% confident this is what happened to their first engine, the bearing surfaces were also shot, they look like the oil had completely brocken down and stoped lubricating them).

The one he has is fitted with an Oil stat and still retains the donut cooler ahead of the oil/air rad, this is so that it can still heat the oil from cold, and the stat prevents over-cooling. Cleary itâ??s not been used enough to validate the size and position of the rad, but time will tell, we placed several temp tel-tales on the engine to keep track of what temps the oil is getting to.

(As a side not to this, we re-configured the plumbing on the car to, I ahve no idea what they were thinking about when they designed this, bit it's just hopeless, adding the electric pump is just anothing bodge to try and get round the basic plumbing flaws, it does not address the actual issues.)