Oil Cooler and radiator ducting

At Llandow we had to slow down towards the end of a session because the oil temperature alarm kept coming on meaning that temperatures were exceeding 120 deg C, no problem with the water which stayed at just over 90 deg C and was controlled by the fan.  As the weather was overcast and not particularly warm I decided that oil cooling would be worth while.

After researching options I decided that I'd go for a mocal sandwich plate with 92 deg C thermostat, 16 row radiator and a remote oil filter as there wasn't enough clearance to the steering column to fit the sandwich plate and even the small filter.  I bought a selection of push on adapters and a couple of metres of blue hose.

The instructions stated that the cooler need to be in air flow, after looking around the engine bay I decided that the best option would be in front of the radiator so I fitted the Westfield ally ducting kit, cut it down to allow the bonnet to close and then fabricated a bracket that went under the cooler and was rivetted to the ducting.

Ducting and cooler mounting

Cooler hoses and remote filter

hose P clips

U section bracket

Sandwich plate and hoses clearing the steering column

Once the cooler was in place I fabricated a bracket from alloy U section to mount the remote filter and fitted the sandwich plate and 'mushroom' cover to the engine.  I then made up the hoses and held them in place with a selection of p clips, separator clamps and ty-wraps.

Out on the road the oil is now typically 5-6 degrees lower than the water as apposed to 5-6 degrees higher but lower than the 92 degs C of the sandwich plate thermostat.  The weather has been unseasonably cool so hopefully I'll get a better idea of the effectiveness at the Isle of Man and on some track days later in the year.  Filling up with oil I added and extra 0.5 Litre to fill the oil cooler and extra hoses.