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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Hard-lines for oil cooler


Ark

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Hello Everyone,

Just toying with ideas for tinkering with my oil cooling...thinking of daisy-chaining a second cooler on the other side of the car. Obviously the easy solution would be braided hoses, but they might have to be routed low, behind the radiator. So, I was thinking of using hard pipes similarly sized to a -10 hose, to make them safer from road debris. Would 15mm domestic copper pipe be adequate for this? Can this be joined to JIC hose ends, perhaps via a BSP convertor?

 

I figure that the heat conductivity of copper would also help dump heat from the oil, as well as being nice and cheap.

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It sounds great in theory (with the extra cooling etc) but I would be a little worried about said road debris hitting a copper line. The braided oil lines can take a LOT of punishment, I'm not so sure a copper line would be up to the same sort of beating.

 

Also, imagine the copper variety being crimped somehow, or even dented by slightly larger debris. I would be worried about it being restricted.

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Possibly not - but it gets a bit warm in there on trackdays (like 130 degrees for oil, 105 degrees for water :( ), since I fitted the FMIC. Stupid thing to do in retrospect, but we are where we are. I'll be damned if I'm removing a grands worth of intercooler when I've got a spare oil cooler kicking around. What else could I do to drop heat? Would a full decat help? Ducting? Single turbo, rather than two turbos heating the fluids up? ;)

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I can't remember how many rows it is, maybe 25, BUT it is a narrow one to fit around the intercooler pipe as it comes through the nearside vent. Currently it's un-ducted which is my first port of call. Don't get me wrong, on a cruise or hard drive, the temps are fine. It's just when I do a long session on track going really hard that it gets hot. That's when the cooling system can't really cope, and I'd rather end my session because I'VE had enough, rather than because the car has!

 

Would ducting the intercooler really help? If air can escape around it, then I get cooler air into the radiator, surely. So it's the radiator that would need properly sealing against the frame.

Edited by Ark (see edit history)
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Yes, for engine cooling you want to make sure that air can't escape between the bumper opening before going through the rad. So if you have a gap underneath between the fmic and rad a lot of air will escape down there rather than go through the rad. Same goes at the sides and the top since you normally have to remove the stock ducting there. You're probably right that if the fmic wasn't ducted to the rad you would just get air bypassing the fmic and then going through the rad anyway, but only if there is nowhere for it to escape first. Not much point in having a fmic and having air bypassing it anyway of course!

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