Just looking for my options on a kit that won't break the bank and not really interfere with ground clearance if possible.
I have noticed the RK kit is nice in the sense it is plug and play but I'm not too keen on the pricing of the kit and the fact it sits in a cut out portion of the lower main splash guard. I do appreciate the kit being plug and play means the price is somewhat higher than something you find yourself, but I don't mind sourcing suitable parts and fabricating mounts etc in order to save what will be a significant amount.
Also, here in the UK ground clearance can be an issue especially for low cars as we have a lot of speed humps here and I wouldn't feel comfortable with a $2000 kit being the first thing to bear the brunt of a tall speed hump, and the possibility of losing all of my oil.
I like this option as it looks quite easy and the housing is factory. No external thermostat so it appears pretty neat.
I can locate an E39 Gulf housing for about £250. What isn't entirely clear is the size of the Oil Cooler in that thread, I appreciate its a 16 row cooler but nothing about the length of the matrix.
Furthermore can someone explain the Gulf housing connections, it looks to be basically a standard housing with two extra ports that go to and from your cooler, the thermostat is inside the housing, correct?
Finally, are the threaded connectors in the housing and cooler industry standard, say BSP threads or AN?
If so that seems pretty plug and play for something you essentially get the pieces for yourself.
There are many oil coolers out there, but I don't think the setrab oil cooler offers as much cooling as the one sold by the RK folks.
There are alternatives. Look into C&R oil coolers, remote oil thermostats (if you want one) the AN lines is something you will have to measure and have them made. This will still cost you over 1k. If you don't want to get your hands dirty pay more and avoid the headache.
Thanks for the heads up, i'll look into C&R and remote stats. If the Gulf filter looks too much or is NLA i'll likely go this route.
I appreciate the RK kit offers better cooling and a perhaps simpler bolt on solution, but I still am not overly keen on its position due to roads and clearance over here as said. Also I would need to add another 20% on cost for import duty.
No doubt its the best no brainer solution but It would have to be something I would be 100% happy with for that sort of money and I cannot because of reasons stated above. I have lost count the amount of times I have heard the undertray scrape and catch on bumps over here and I can't chance that I'm afraid. If I damaged it I'd be devastated and if I did it to the point I lost oil I don't know what I'd do!!
Ambients over here very rarely reach the 80's even in summer, so a smaller cooler may well be enough in the UK, what do you guys think on that?
I think I can likely get lines or even custom BMW filter lines to standard AN lines made up gratis or near to because of my engineering contacts so that shouldn't be a major issue. I'm either looking for a cooler and thermostat, or a cooler and maybe the Gulf filter housing.
I saw Peter has a thread about installing a Setrab (or similar) too although his is mounted higher because of an A2W cooler or something lower down (past install?) I'd like to mount mine in the flow of the bumper mesh and not fool around with the kidney area of the car.
I have the exact same fear with the RK oil cooler. It also is entirely incompatible with my car. My charge piping is routed directly below my radiator. My Rotrex cooler is located where you're thinking about putting your oil cooler. That leaves behind the kidney grills, for me.
The collected wisdom on the Setrab solution is that it does offer some cooling, and you will see a temperature drop as a result of using it. It's just not as dramatic as the RK cooler. I'm planning on aping Tim's / Peter's solutions this coming winter, since I can't really think of any other place that I can reasonably put the cooler on my car.
If you do end up putting an oil cooler behind the mesh in your front bumper, I'd love to see how you did it.
The 16-row Setrab I had proved woefully inadequate when deleting the stock oil cooler. In combination with the stock oil cooler, I'm sure it would be fine.
I subsequently tried a 40-row cooler, and it fit, but as a replacement for the stock oil cooler, it still did not do the trick. I probably could have made it work with some ducting. That is the problem with mounting the oil cooler in front of the kidneys, viz., one has to delete the ducting to make it fit. That, in turn, causes air to go everywhere EXCEPT through the cooler where you need it. Instead, it gets deflected into the headlights and other places.
The RK oil cooler (just an improved version of the Dinan oil cooler and in the same location) is the best in terms of the cooling it affords, but as Jamie notes, it is pricey, and I, too, do not like where it sits relative to the cold, hard, damaging ground.
In my current build, I opted to go for a C&R radiator with an integrated oil cooler. But I will be making some custom ducting for the kidneys (will post pics when that is done--it's not hard).
Peter, you've touched on something obvious that I somehow did not take into account.
What if you were running a stage 2 RK kit with intercooler. Would that area behind the standard bumper mesh be completely off limits then?
I initially thought about an oil cooler as I was hoping to lay groundwork not just for my RK stage 1, but hopefully if I chose to upgrade. The now obvious thought that the intercooler may well want to be in that very location has given me a facepalm moment.
I'm unclear on what conclusion can be drawn from this. On a stock cooling setup, the Setrab-behind-the-kidneys solution isn't capable of making a real difference in oil temperature?
Yes, it will make a difference, even without additional ducting. The discussion kind of gravitated to it not making as much of a difference as it could if it were placed somewhere else, or had proper ducting.
Peters setup isn't really a good comparison. He will actually have to have a pumping system to run hot coolant through his block before start up like F1 cars. This is so the metal expands properly to allow the pistons to freely move within the bores.
Since I have this setup, I am willing to look at it.
I have the stock heat exchanger and stock fan setup. So you recommend some ducting between the kidneys and the oil cooler? Close in the sides completely so everything going through the kidneys goes through the oil cooler first? If so, no concerns about enough cool air getting to the rad, the contents of which have a lower boiling point than the oil?
The speed bumps we have over here can be quite intrusive under the car and a lot of them are only wide enough so they fit mostly inside the track of the car.
In effect that means your wheels don't really bump over them as such, but you are allowing a 4-7" high piece of chamfered concrete to pass under the car.
I have scraped the undretray on a few occasions as you can imagine the local authority care not on iota for others cars, lowered or not and not all are installed the same.
I think it may have been touched on but what about a cooler in place of the US passenger side wheel well? I've removed my SAP so have some room there. Out of the way, not stealing air from a radiator or the space where a future FMIC could be located??
Depending on which supercharger kit you go with, I think the air filter ends up in that area doesn't it? Down behind the fog-light, or am I misinterpreting?
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