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Oil Cooler Test: Teaser and Questions

1K views 15 replies 7 participants last post by  epowell7 
#1 ·
Just thought i would throw out a teaser about the test i plan on running on the effectiveness of oil coolers. I had been planing to run a test if i could get a hand on a good- non billet cooler, and i just managed to get my hands on this bad boy for just 40 bones.



Anyways, here is how i plan to run it. First, i will get baseline stats by running a TB 88 R/H kit without the cooler starting at cold and then holding at 1/4 max rpm for 45 seconds and then holding it at 1/2 max RPM (little unscientific here since i don't a tac or any way other than audible verification to estimate RPM) for 7 minutes. Then I'll hold it at 11mph in 1st (7000 rpm with my gearing), and 29mph in 3rd(7000 rpm with my gearing). Each time ill start the engine from completely cold, do the 45 seconds holding it 1/4 throttle for slight warm up, then hold it at each of those speeds for 45 seconds. I have a bicycle speedo hooked up, so keeping at constant speed will only be a matter of finding a parking lot big enough to turn at 30mph. :D The reason for the first and third gear testing is to just see how the oil cooler effects differ with low and higher constant speeds.



Then i will install the oil cooler and do all these tests over again.



Also, i luckily managed to get this oil cooler right as i planned to buy a 108 stroker crank to throw on the bike. So after all this testing, i will split the cases, throw in the new crank, the ATC70 transmission, and the TB HD auto clutch i plan on putting in. Then ill do all the same testing, with and without the oil cooler. Since i have the 4 speed, ill be changing the at speed tests to 13MPH in first (7000 rpm) and 27 MPH in 3rd(7000rpm again) and 36mph in 4th(again, 7000rpm).



For each of these I'll record oil, engine block, and oil-cooler fin(only for the tests with the oil cooler installed of course) temperature before and after each test, as well as record the air temperature and weather conditions.



Now comes the question section. The engine block and oil cooler fin temps are easy for me to get, i have an infrared temp sensor we use for tire temp data on the car im working on. However, the oil temp might be difficult. I am not sure we have tempertature probes for use in liquid/oil. Does anyone know if there is a cheap way to get something that will be pretty accurate at measuring oil temperatures? I was considering a good old digital thermometer like the $5 ones they sell at walgreens, but i somehow doubt they measure as high as oil temps will go accurately... Anyone have a rough estimation of how high the oil temps go on these lil bikes?



Anyways, my reason for putting in so much effort for all this is that it seems to be a controversial issue, and i have the opportunity to do some good research. So i decided to get results not just for myself, but also so that i could try and give back to the forum that i have gotten so much valuable information from.



Also, any suggestions for my testing setup? I was considering doing the testing with the cooler mounted in a different position, but it seems like that would be a large amount more work. I had planned on from mounting the oil cooler, and the secondary position would be with the oil cooler mounted on the right or left side of the bike like ive seen in a few pics of some beautiful builds. We'll see if i have time and the will power after ive finished all the rest of the testing...
 
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#3 ·
Im excited to do the testing. Luckily i have a 2 week break between comp for the car I'm helping build and when summer classes at my college starts. Check this out. Skip to about 2 min 30 sec in to see after the driver and car have warmed up. :D Talk about an adrenaline rush.



Should be a fun two weeks, i have about 10 different things ive been stocking up over the past month to install on the bike. Its looking like i'll have my hands full doing all the work on the lil bike. Everyone just cross their fingers that i dont screw something up while splitting the cases for the first time and doing a tranny, crank, and clutch replacement. :fingersx:
 
#5 ·
As far as ive seen all the billet oil coolers are actualy LESS expensive. The billet oil coolers generaly have more mass for the cooling area, so the wide spread consensus seems to be that they are less effective at cooling than the non-billet oil coolers.



And actualy, if you look at the picture i posted, the oil cooler im testing is the Kitaco non-billet unit, one of the most expensive ones on the market. Lucky me picking it up for $40 shipped. :D
 
#9 ·
epowell7 said:
Im excited to do the testing. Luckily i have a 2 week break between comp for the car I'm helping build and when summer classes at my college starts. Check this out. Skip to about 2 min 30 sec in to see after the driver and car have warmed up. :D Talk about an adrenaline rush.



Should be a fun two weeks, i have about 10 different things ive been stocking up over the past month to install on the bike. Its looking like i'll have my hands full doing all the work on the lil bike. Everyone just cross their fingers that i dont screw something up while splitting the cases for the first time and doing a tranny, crank, and clutch replacement. :fingersx:


Oh man that looks like a absolute blast what that have for a motor? 600cc or more? And are you driving??? For some reason I feel like I would have hit a couple cones lol.
 
#10 ·
Make sure you fill the cooler and have it mounted so lines are on top so it can actually have some oil flowing through the entire thing. I believe they will lower the temp, mine is always hot after it warms up and the extra surface area will cool the oil a little, will that will make any difference to the longevity or performance of these little motors, probably not.

Looking forwards to your results, and sticking a thermometer into the oil should work for getting the oil temp.
 
#11 ·
50rider340 said:
Oh man that looks like a absolute blast what that have for a motor? 600cc or more? And are you driving??? For some reason I feel like I would have hit a couple cones lol.


Its a 600cc honda F4i engine. We design and build the car from the ground up. Its pretty much a full on race car. Its for a competition called Fomula SAE. We make everything from the 4130 chromoly chasis down to the custom designed and machined break calipers- all done in house of course. 0-60 in about 3 seconds, corners at right at 2.1 g's of lateral force on the skidpad. :D



And no, that aint me driving. That is one of our competition drivers. We have two guys on the team who have been cart racing since they where little. Theyre both pretty insanely skilled.
 
#14 ·
jirish617 said:
i was gunna say sounds like a bikeeeeeeee haha, that looks awesome i would love to do that for school
Yah, it extra curricular, no course credit. I spent 40 hours in the shop working on the damn thing in a 3 day period at the begining of this week. Its nice though, I'm new to the team this year, so i just dived into fabrication. To avoid all the b*tch work, i jumped into welding. Im now the top welder on the team. Yay for teaching myself to lay consistent stacked dime welds on everything from chromoly to aluminum to titanium. :) Did the full custom Ti exhaust we did this year. Thinking about miniaturizing our custom exchangable baffle system muffler and throwing one on my bike. :)



And fireman_343, the whole debate includes mounting position. If the oil cooler is actualy effective, it shouldnt matter how you mount the oil cooler, it should purge out all the air in the system on its own. However, on the systems for the 50's, the oil flow isnt forced, so its debatable wether enough flow goes through the system to make it purge out all the air, or even cool the bike. Many people think that on these bikes you have to mount them with the input and outputs on the top so that the whole thing gets filled, but others think that that will somehow result in accumulation of metal from engine wear inside the oil cooler. Somehow though, i believe that the thick viscosity engine oil will fill up the small reservoir on the input side before it begins to flow through the small passageways in the cooling area. The main thing is on oil cooling systems that force the oil to travel through the cooler, it doesnt matter how you mount it. On these little bike, its yet another issue in the debate about oil coolers.



and RiDe, sorry, but the oil cooler heating up doesnt mean a thing. Feel the carb after you ride for 10 minutes. Just because that mofo is steamy hot doesnt mean it had oil running through it. ;) Anything attached to an engine who's block will burn you with just a grazing touch will heat up too. Proximity to the exhaust header alone is enough to make the oil cooler hot. Which is why some think the billet oil coolers can actualy cause the engine temp to head up.

The oil exposed to more metal exposed to cool air would definently lead too cooler oil temps. If you forced oil to travel through a cooler you had mounted on big bars and cruised at 30mph, heck yes it would cool. If you forced oil to travel through a cooler mounted directly to the exhaust header, heck YES it would cause engine temps to rise. Part of the issue with these little things is where they sit on the linked continuous spectrum of the relationship between (oil cooler effects on temperature) VS (proximity to heat generating body).
 
#16 ·
So guys, i post this to let all who may have been interested know that i wont be able to follow through with the testing at this point in time.



I just got a bone stock 05 Mustang GT that is begging for some suspension and engine upgrades, so I wont have any money or time to spare on the stroker kit i was planning on getting.



I would go ahead and do the test with the 88 R/H kit I have on the bike, but the truth is that wouldnt be nearly as thorough or informative of a test as i would like to do, so instead of going about the whole thing half-assed, i'm going to put it on the shelf as a project for the future.



Hopefully i will get more time and money in the next 6 months or a year to follow through with the plans i made, it is definently something i want and plan to do when the time comes that getting the stroker kit is feasible and reasonable. If only money grew on trees.



On that note, to all who might be interested, I will be posting a FS thread in the CRF50 section for a Mikuni VM26 kit in the near future, so either keep your eyes open or shoot me a PM.



Anyways, with that i bid the forum a temporary goodbye, but i will be back to finish what I started.



A thank you goes out to vince at T-Bolt who was very generous in his offer to help me in getting the parts i needed for the testing on my tight budget.



Thanks for the help and support with this endeavor and all the others i have had with the little bike.
 
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