az9oneone

I have a '76 911 I am building for track use. My new project is adding a front mount oil cooler. I bought a Mazda RX7 oil cooler on Ebay because I heard it is good for my application. The fit seems to be perfect for my RSR bumper. The existing oil lines and thermostat are in bad shape so my plan was to use an after-market thermostat and ss braided oil lines. The problem I'm having is finding fittings that will work for me. I found a couple of different oil coolers that use AN 12 lines and fittings. The fittings I need to find are the ones for the oil cooler, the engine and the oil tank. I understand that I will need some sort of fitting that will convert Mazda and Porsche fittings into AN12. Does anyone have any ideas were to get these fittings? Thanks for any help.

earlyapex

Pegasus is a good resource.

https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/ad...oryID=PLUMBING

az9oneone

Thanks for the source. It looks like Pegasus has a good selection of fittings. Does anyone have any idea of what size fittings I should be looking for?

az9oneone

Let me clarify. What size fittings would the oil tank and engine take? And a harder question; what size would a Mazda oil cooler take?

911Mojo

I believe the fittings coming out of the oil tank are 30 mm. So, you need to go from the 30 mm to what ever -AN size you choose. I believe -12 is common. -16 is bigger and likely better, but limits your choices of coolers from what I've seen.

bbh03

You need metric to -AN adapters. I know that many have gotten them from batinc.net. Pegasus may have them too. I know Steve at Air Cooled Racing in PA can help as well.

Most will recommend -16 for this application which is a 1" line. -12 would be a bare minimum.

Is the car for track only? Some people run w/o the thermostat and without the engine external oil cooler(front cooler only). You would need to be careful warming up on cold days though.

az9oneone

The oil cooler I am going to use is from a Mazda RX7. The inlet and outlet appear to be 18mm. Is this going to be too restrictive? I've heard that these oil coolers work well for 911's.

bbh03

I don't know much about the RX7 oil cooler. I'm only aware of one car that has used it.

I would still plumb -16 lines and then reduce to the cooler inlet size. This way if you ever find the cooler is insufficient, you would not have to replace many hundreds of dollars of braided lines.

az9oneone

Thanks, that's good advice.

jameshtaylor

If appearance is a consideration, think about using those braided lines in the wheel wells only, connecting to 90 degree elbows and 1 inch stainless tubing between the wheel wells. Adds a bit of expense but in my opinion it is worth it. It would look even better if you could find someone (I couldn't) to bend the lines slightly around the jacking point...like the factory solution, thus allowing the pipes to be a tad further under the car. A 1" pipe works well with the -16 fittings. Pegasus sells a -16 adapter which you braze to either end of the pipe so that Aeroquip fittings on the ends of the braided lines can be attached. I second the suggestion of others to use -16 lines in lieu of 12's...which I believe sometimes just don't do the job. Interesting that early factory race cars had lines even up to -20 to provide adequate cooling.

bbh03

-20 is sometimes used for the oil pump suction line, especially if it is a long run. -16 is fine for the filtered engine outlet to cooler and tank.

JackOlsen

I remember hearing about welding in new (wider) fittings to the RX7 coolers to make them work. Also, doesn't the Mazda cooler have an integrated thermostat that you have to get rid of?

az9oneone

OK, everyone agrees that bigger is better for oil lines and other things. The problem now is that the 2 aftermarket thermostats that I have found both have AN12 fittings. So now we have a bottleneck there. Anyone have any ideas on where to get a good thermostat with larger openings.

RT930turbo

Pegasus sells a mocal theromostat that has -16 fittings, right around $100 or so.

RT930turbo

http://www.pegasusautoracing.com/pro...p?Product=1226 there's the link, hope that helps a little