Since I'm not painting my car for a while ...

I'm convinced that bodywork is more important than paint color, and primer is growing on me. So I need a little help with some specific images.
The background is that I've put hundreds of miles on my car this month, to the tune of about 1,000. I'm pretty sure I've identified all the things I have to do, and I have a potential solution to the worst of the offenders, but that's what I need pictures for.
I have already irrevocably modified my car's body. It will never, ever be as straight or as cool as most of the cars I've seen on this site. It won't ever line up right, and I'm certain I'll never add bumpers or a windshield again, either.
So, I'm after functional body mods in keeping with the theme. My engine's temperature at 65 mph and below seems to stay in the 190-210 range, depending on outside air temperatures and traffic. It's a 2424, it's got Jake's fantastic shroud on it and I'm using four quarts of 5W-30 Mobil 1.
The oil cooler is new, the lines are braided and the engine is clean to the paint, so I can't figure that anything other than running it hard, driving the way I do (70-80 mph) routinely has been responsible for my 220-235 degree spikes when I stay on the gas.
The RPMs are only in the 3,500 range at 75 mph. I'm not hammering it, and I'm not whipping in and out of traffic. Around here, that's keeping with the flow. There are solid surrounds for an engine compartment now, and the edges are tight and seal well. My conclusion is that the only things I can do are either introduce more air into the compartment from above (louvres, a twin-grille lid or an electric fan) or add a remote oil cooler.

(more)

So, here's the thinking in the Drake camp now. If I can find a suitable series of vertical oil coolers, like the ones that clamp to the upright, forward segment of a motorcycle's chassis, I can bolt them on directly and take advantage of the Hoopty's chassis' tubing for support. I would mount those on the downriggers behind the hoops, inclining them by that angle in the void space above my ignition components.
They'd look something like these, and I might be able to make them if I can't find them in stock somewhere for a reasonable price: http://www.steelthundercc.com/assets/buell%20assets/tube%20oil%20cooler%20NYChop.jpg
Or, the second thought (and the one I'm leaning toward), is to cut my front clip (again) and add louvres to the ridgeline of the fenders like the 70s LeMans cars. The ones I have in mind are the 917-sized cars, with the slotted brake vents on top of their front fenderwells. I know I've seen them, but I'll be darned if I can find off-the-shelf aluminum that's cut to a curve and still has raised louvre edges to work with.
Any photos of either the right era of car with the appropriate vents or a shot of the underside of a vented fender would be nice.
I would mount a pair of motorcycle coolers behind and below them, on my kick-panels. Since my footwell is already metal, it shouldn't be much trouble to rivet ductwork from the fender slits to the coolers, and it's a cinch I could run more braided lines to and from the rear of the car without much trouble.
Finally, the real tech part of my question is the strength of my oil pump. Will it support running oil to the cooler in the DTM, and then from there to the coolers in the nose and then back to the block? It's a bone-stock T-IV pump -- and I have no idea what to do if it won't work for me.
ANY ideas or suggestions would be welcome.

BTW: I do have the paint code from the car's VIN plate/paint code combo, and that settled that. Ironically, it's metallic silver.

I've got a type I but I have found four things that have helped me get into a temp range I feel is acceptable:
Add an oil sump. I went with a 2-1/2 quart thin line from CB.
A bigger exhaust system. I'm running an 1-5/8" for a 2110.
A remote oil cooler with a fan that kicks on at 180 degrees.
I put a vent hole in the fire wall in front of the fan shroud. Don't know if this would be applicable with the DTM shroud.
An interesting note. On the way back from Paso, Dale, Paul, Scott and I all experienced a sudden 20-30 degree drop in oil temps when we went through a rain spurt. The ambient temperature was in the 60s. It was freaky but cool. The only thing I could think of causing this was the water spray onto the oil sump. Dale mentioned hooking up a water reservoir with a pump to squirt it when the temps start to rise.

Cory,

Firstly, I am not certain that oil temps of 225-235 for short periods of time is a problem, particularily with synthetics. With that said, using only the stock cooler type IV is in my experience marginal at best. On my last engine, a Type I medium performance 2110, using a type IV cooler with DTM shroud resulted in oil temps well over 240 degrees in less than 10 miles of 70 mph driving.

I removed the Type IV cooler and went back to the more conventional external cooler with electric fan....with a high capacity oil pump, which I higly recommend. Oil temps do not get over 210, even on 100 degreee days so far, and at some sustained runs over 100 mph....

other important temps in my thinking are head temps.....

Ask Jake Raby ! ! ! Then buy something from him, otherwise he's gonna pout something fierce . . . .

For the fins and louvers and things, look to RV sales and junkyards or hit the local Home Depot. Everything on an RV is vented or louvered aluminum and the heating department of any Home Depot is a treasure trove of "that's cool!"

Hey Cory,

I had another thought...It was common to place small oil coolers behind the horn grills on racing 356's, and it may have been stock on the racing Carrera's. Of course that would require some plumbing, but it would be in keeping with the outlaw approach on your car....you could in effect use 2 type 4 coolers mounted remotely, or at least that size.....

You can mount two fan forced oil coolers on an 25- 35 degree or so angle left and right of the transmission with the fans forcing the air down through the coolers (not up as the warmer air would then be introduced into the fan shroud.)
Also an in line thermostat and a under dash manual over ride switch.

Cory,
I have some aluminum ones that I was going to use to make a carrera lid but got scared of the detail work, you're welcome to them. I take a pic of them and post it. I kinda chopped one up a little but I think it's still useable.

Cory: Cooling the oil will give you a false sense of security. Depending on were you are measuring the temperature and how accurate your sender and gauge are your oil will be seeing much hotter temperatures in the heads. Unless you cool the heads directly the oil will always see very high peak temperatures which will cause it to break down.

The hot ticket is to duct cool air into the fan shroud. This will provide more cooling the faster you drive keeping the heads cooler so the oil will see a much lower peak temperature.

On mine I have mounted a scoop ahead of the rear wheel with a screen and a shutter on it. From there I use a 4

I used 3 six inch ac ducting elbows. they scoop the air from in front of the rear left axel and then gets piped directly into the shroud. I will post picts when I get home tonight.

Those are all good ideas -- plenty to think about.
I need to see what the head temperatures get to before I do anything, I think.
Gordon, the AutoMeter gauge sender is located in the bottom of the case, at the rear and on the right side.

I remember looking at a thread on the samba or shoptalk about the inaccuracy of VDO oil temp gauges. I'll try and find that post.

Found it.



http://thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=227495&highlight=vdo

The direct link to the practical temp knowledge:
http://www.ratwell.com/technical/VDOGauges.html
I will be reading a lot ... I found it through your Samba link. Thanks!

Terry,
A really sharp guy on the Pelican site (Grady Clay) did an experiment with squirting water into the cooling fan with the engine running. He was able to consistently get temperature drops like the ones you guys saw during the rain. The fan was drawing the misted water across the engine and oil cooler. Water can absorb more heat than air, so the engine ran cooler.

He rigged a bladder bag under the passenger seat and put a windshield washer pump into it. I think he just used an on/off switch but there is no reason you could not do the same thing with an automatic temperature switch (like the switch that turns on an electric fan).

This REALLY does work. I believe he even used it successfully in some races. For a street car, you would go thru alot of water... But, if you only needed it now in then, like say when it was really hot and you got stuck in traffic - this could be a viable help.

What do you think? Hey, I know, let's have Cory experiment!
angela

Corey can do whatever he wants but I'm definitely going to try it.
Thanks, Angela!

The Subaru Impreza WRX STi comes standard with this type of water mist system. I think it uses the water from the windshield water bottle. I saw this at the auto show and the button was on the lower left of the dash and said I/C spray or something. Pretty cool feature for a factory car. Looks like a pretty simple set up, and I think a few people on the Scooby forums are buying Stock Sti parts to mod it to their non-sti Subarus. Perhaps this is something you could do also?

Heres a link to what the subaru guys do to make it work:
http://www.scoobymods.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-3642.html

Here is what the STi button looks like:
http://www.kingofimports.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=0&idproduct=63

I found Grady Clay's article about this. It's kind of long as various people jump up and misunderstand what Grady is talking about.... He's just squirting a mist of water into the cooling fan for air, not water injecting into the intake charge.

The subie guys have the same idea with cooling the intercooler. Here's Grady Clay's explanation. If you don't know Grady, this is the guy who is THE guy for Porsche stuff. Great guy and brilliant porsche nut.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?s=3ed2cc28956ce0f1064404fdc47285e6&threadid=150982&highlight=grady+water+injection

Oh, I forgot to mention, not only is there a huge thermal gain, how about 15% more horsepower on a normally aspirated air-cooled engine?
angela

Terry, I'll probably have to try that before I try the more radical radiator treatment.
I'd be happy to collaborate with you on the effort.

>"What do you think? Hey, I know, let's have Cory experiment!"

Lesse, 1 case of brew + 1 catheter = non-stop cooling and more H.P!
Whatcha think, Cory? It'd be a real pissa! :)

Heh, heh ... WB - Nice talking to you on the phone tonight. Good stuff. I'll be trying to find that proportioner, too. Don't let me forget about that!

Ja man, glad you called! Cruise time is coming and the Mason-Dixon is smack in the middle of us. Not long now till the party starts.

Okay, so I made some measurements and went to the drafting table ...
Eyeballing it, I should be able to hard-mount a Harley (or some other motorcycle) oil cooler inside my left front fender. I'm not sure what the logic is on running two coolers in series, though.
Anybody see why that wouldn't work?

Cory,

I could run the math for you, but believe if you need two, better to put them in parallel vs. in series. Also, as I have been following your oil cooler business here, believe that keeping coolers close coupled to the engine will be worth the trouble. Sounds like you have decided on that. Will these be "naturally aspirated", so to speak, or fan driven, w/ T-stat? I think I would appreciate the latter, although recognize the extra trouble and complexity to do so. One needs to consider the other side of the heating/cooling equation here: what happens when cold out? If you have fan driven, no problem for the t-stat to keep the fans off. Further thought: since you are into a bunch of external high pressure plumbing to get this done, maybe there might be room for T-stat by-pass, wherein no oil goes in the external cooling circuit until you have a certain minimal heat in the egnine. Quick warm ups are always a good thing. Maybe there is made a thing for oil circuits not unlike the T-stat in a water cooled system, that keeps the water out of the radiator until the block warms up.

I have an idea that in order for you to have yet more Hoppty-ness (can there ever be too much??) you will need a good measurement of head temperature. That would imply that somebody would actually know what a good spec for that might be, but if you get that nailed down, adding a sensor to read that out should be fairly simple. Is this something we could work on? Maybe some here at SOC have already nuked this out.

Kelly

PS: We gotta work on that trip to see Mickey, maybe. or just visit?