Normy

Well...it appears that it actually works.

Recently, I had trouble with my radiator. An all aluminum radiator produced by one of the big three. Since it was leaking from one of the tubes, it was not repairable----> time for a new radiator!

Well, I learned my lesson: [I shouldn't] try to re-engineer my car! Or shouldn't I?

-PLENTY of people on here have modified their cars, most with good results. Hell, there were TWO supercharged cars at SITM! The sound of the supercharger was fascinating.

In any case, I was faced with replacing my radiator. Easy job...just unhook a few tubes, unscrew the mounts at the top corners, and remove the oil cooler connections.

Oil cooler?

Yeah- right. Good luck trying to find an oil/transmission cooler if yours goes bad! I called all around, and was unable to find one of these. None of the Big Three had one either, and [at the time] none had a radiator with an oil cooler built in. Hmm...

Well, back in my pre-928 days, I had a VW Corrado VR6. It had a digital dash, with an oil temperature readout...and it concerned me. Despite VW's assurances, the notion of normal oil temperatures running upwards of 235 degrees F bothered me a little, and 250 degrees F temperatures when running the car hard got all of my attention! I purchased an external oil cooler kit for the car, and mounted it. The difference was dramatic: Normal in-traffic temperatures dropped to 210-215 degrees F, and maximum temps only rised to around 220-225! This unit was thermostatic, mounted in the left wheel well ahead of the tire, and used a "sandwich plate". It was an adapation from a kit designed for the VW four cylinder, and the sandwich plate was designed to mount above the oil filter. The VR6 engine does not use a spin on filter, but since they wanted to use a proprietary oil-to-water cooler from the four cylinders, a mounting point for the external oil cooler already existed and it was a simple bolt on affair.

Well, I was faced with either rigging my car [bad idea~], driving without an oil cooler [bad idea~], or trying to figure something out. A call to ABD Performance, the group that specializes in VW's and produced the oil cooler kit for the Corrado was not without fruit. They obviously did not have any sort of kit for the 928 [though the person I talked to was incredulous that no kits of this sort existed at a reasonable price...I wonder if he was taking notes?], they pointed me in a possible direction nonetheless. A rather "proletarian" direction, though that has never bothered me. They said to check into oil cooler kits manufactured by Hayden, and that they even thought they could be found at [of all places!] Pep-Boys!

WELL. Hayden's website told me many things, but nothing that I needed to know. SO, I grabbed one of my MANN oil filters and drove over to Pep-Boys. Sure enough, there was an oil cooler kit available. I pulled the box open, and carefully fit the Porsche oil filter to their sandwich plate-

A perfect fit!

OK. What the hell, it was only $89, so I bought it. When I got it home, my eyes immediately fixated on the rubber hoses that they use to route oil to the cooler- they looked like heater hoses, and were quite a bit smaller in diameter than my OEM hoses, so I was concerned that they would handle the heat and [especially] 5 bar pressure that our engines run at. Hmm. I shrugged, and figured "well, there is one way to find out!", so I installed it.

I mounted the sandwich plate using the included oil fiter extension, and immediately a problem presented itself: the sandwich plate is 3-4 cm thick, so the oil fiter sticks down 3-4 cm more...not good, because now the bottom sticks out below the roll bar. I can just see myself hitting something in the road and losing all my oil, hundreds of miles from home. NOT to worry...one thing that I discovered at Pep-Boys was a Purolator Oil Filter that just happened to be about an inch [2.5 cm] shorter than the standard MANN filter [hence my post about two weeks ago~]...suddenly my system seemed to work! I routed the oil lines past the left/driver's side of the radiator by bending the metal plate that forms a seal between the sides of the engine bay and the radiator itself. The cooler was actually mounted ahead of the AC fan and condenser, on metal straps that are attached around the lower hood latch at the top, and at the bottom to the crossbrace that forms the cradle for the radiator. The cooler itself is about 10 X 10 inches/ 25 x 25 cm. I bought a pair of M22 x 1.5 plugs from Devek to block off the old oil cooler ports on the engine.

How much did it help? I don't know- I don't have an oil temperature gauge. Did it leak? No- I drove 680 miles to SITM with this in place, and it has yet to drip its first drop.

For reference, this kit is available at Pep-Boys, and is kit #459.

Here's the pix:

Sandwich plate installed:

<img src="http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/sins.jpg" alt=" - " />

Cooler installed- the plastic grill was pulled down, the air dam is secured:

<img src="http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/ocins.jpg" alt=" - " />

Oil filters: Porsche/MANN vs Purolator L30251:

<img src="http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/2fs.jpg" alt=" - " />

Normy!
'85 S2 5 Speed

Curt

Normy, sounds like a fairly easy job. What did you do with the original oil lines that went to the radiator?

Normy

Curt- I removed them, stored them in the attic. The only radiator I could procure had no oil cooler, so they were of no value to me. The new cooler has barb/clamp fittings instead of the screw on fittings of the radiator mounted unit.

N!
'85 S2 5 Speed

Gretch

You are a "star" Normy.............

Thanks for the detailed post and picts.......