Currently, I've got the ol' greddy kit upgraded to the point of only manifold and turbo remaining from the original kit, just over 200 whp, stainless oil feed and return...
Like years ago I PM'd Savington about oil cooler ideas and he linked me to the setup he was running at the time.. he told me he sometimes saw oil temps close to 270* on the track and said optimal is under 240*...
I bought all of the parts to copy Sav's old cooler setup, the only part he didn't specify was if he had gone with angled fittings or straight. I bought straight fittings for in/out of the cooler and in/out of the mocal sandwich plate.

Fast forward to yesterday, I drained all my oil and went to put the sandwich plate on, which because I got straight fittings, has about 3 1/2" of fitting sticking out of it, and it won't fit because the fittings interfere with things around the oil filter location. It seems I needed to get 90* bend fittings...
so because I needed to drive the car later that day, I completed the oil change and just put the filter on without the sandwich plate. 90* fittings are $15 a pop and I need four of them (straights don't work so well on the cooler either) and as I still have to order brake pads this weekend, I've already maxed out my budget right now.

So now I'm one week from Miatas @ MRLS, which will be my first track day, and I'm looking at no oil cooler for the event.

From you guys who have done HPDE's, is running a turbo miata on the track without oil cooling capabilities a recipe for having to do one hot lap and then one cool down, another hot, then another cool down, all day long? If so, maybe I can find a way to get the fittings, but then I'd have to drain all my brand new Mobil 1 synthetic and get 5 more quarts..

Or do you think I will be OK for a track day with no cooler?
I do have an oil temp gauge so I can monitor it's status...

-Ryan

 

I'd run without the cooler. Since you've got the gauge you can just back off when you see temps over 120C (I think that's about 250 in your weird *** yank measurements). At your power level and with synthetic oil I don't think it's going to be an issue unless you have excessively long sessions.

I make 167hp from my M45 and oil temp never seems to be an issue at track days. The ambient temp gets quite hot here in Australia.

 

I would run without it too, ill see you at MRLS. BTW what fittings do you need? Might wanna post it on NCR, someone may have some spares lying around.

 

If you're using good synthetic oil and not cheap crap, you'll be fine. Anything over 275 or so makes me a little nervous, but for your first HPDE you shouldn't have an issue.

 

I don't understand why do you have to drain all the oil the second time when you install the cooler? Maybe I am completely clueless or you are routing it a different way.

Is not the sandwich plate where the oil omes and goes to the cooler?
If so then is not the sandwich plate between the engine and oil filter?

From my memory the oil filter is way above the oil pan which is higher than the oil leval when the engine is off. Correct? So why will you have to drain your new Mobil1 oil and have to refill it with new oil.

Have a great day,
Jared

 

Ryan, the other option is to pick up a used 1.8 oil mixer and a longer stud. I have to do this with my 1.8 block because my fittings foul the block without the mixer in place.

 

Is that correct that the oil level with engine off is below the oil filter level?

Savington - haven't heard of this mixer option. To be honest, not even sure of what the mixer is.. what part of the situation I'm stuck in would this help/solve? A search on m.net and here turned up almost nothing - mostly just a thread of yours where you referred to the mixer very briefly...

The fittings I need are these: 90* bend, Push-lock end & -10 AN female end
Socketless Fittings - Aeroquip Socketless 90 Degree Elbow Fitting
This would hopefully make the sandwich plate fit, and would also make the lines coming off the cooler easier to route..

Thanks in advance for all help
-Ryan

 

Hey man, if i could get the US to switch I would lol

 

Yes, the oil level is about half way up the oil pan, no where near the block. Look where your dipstick goes, that will give you an idea.

If you can, although it sounds like you've already purchased 90* fittings, buy something like Summit Racing SUM-220652 - Summit Racing® AN to NPT Adapter Fittings - Overview - SummitRacing.com instead of Summit Racing SUM-220687 - Summit Racing® Hose Ends - Overview - SummitRacing.com, of the right size obviously. Without the oil/coolant mixer savington is speaking of, you've got very limited room to the alternator bracket with your hoses coming out of the sandwich plate at roughly 2 o'clock, which was my only choice when I installed mine. Too much interference everywhere else. The only thing that sucks is that you should really wrench down on those NPT fittings, which you can't really do if it's required that they need to face a certain direction. Hopefully they're tight when they're sticking away from the block. If you have a tap, run it down 1/16" of a turn or something similarly small until it is tight facing out. This all seems confusing, tell me if it is and I'll draw some pictures or something.

And someone move this to the race section. I'm like modlite without the ability to move to my own section.

 

Interesting idea curly. I see what you mean though, with that AN to NPT 90* bend you've got to cross your fingers that they point out when they are tightened...
And, at ~$10 each, they basically are $4 cheaper than the ones that won't have that problem like the ones I linked to... So no I haven't bought them yet but it seems I might as well just go for the $14 dollar ones that I can be sure I can get pointed the right way..

Anyways, if y'all say I should be OK without the cooler... yes I do run mobil 1 synthetic... I think I'll put this off for now.

 

the part where fittings hit stuff.