I did a search on this and still have sum questions. First of all, has any1 on the forum installed a 3rd gen oil cooler kit on the 8? If so, was it a pain or painless??(I suppose nothing is ever painless w/ these cars ) I'm interested b/c I know the 3rd gens were taken to extreme performance levels and that oil had to stay at reasonable temps. Now w/ the turbo I am really interested, and I know some of the 3rd gen oil coolers were money. I read over maddogs 3rd oil cooler DIY, but I am wondering if any1 has actually used a whole new kit? Thanks.

 

the front oil cooler line on the renny is different than the fd.

why not just do a custom thing for yourself?

 

O yeah. I was just curious b/c I know there are sum very popular kits for the 3rd gens.

 

2 of these dawgies
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-F...temZ8070229058

20 feet of -10 an hose, a t-stat, 18x1.5-10 adapters, bunch of 90* fittings, some hose ends and you're good to go.

 

You could try to fit this one in there somewhere!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB..._BIN_Stores_IT

 

Haha! Damn rotarygod. That's a huge bitch.

 

bwahahahhaa.... i was thinking about posting that one up, but i decided not to.

 

What is the purpose of the upgrade for you? just because you are adding a turbo? Well FD only had one oil cooler (unless it was a R1 or R2) and they did fine with their turbos (even single turbo upgrade keep this set up). We have 2. I know people that upgraded their oil coolers in their FD (to 2 bigger ones) and they reported that their oil temp was getting too low even when they were tracking the car. IMO if you are just upgrading just because you are adding a turbo, is not worth the money. I think the 8 with 2 oil cooler from factory is a bit over kill for a N/A car.

 

you don't do a lot of engines, do you? the single cooler fd's always have oil baked onto everything. it's a bitch to clean. single cooler is NOT fine for anything but regular commuting.


and those people were all too cheap to buy a thermostat. you NEED a thermostat. cannot live without one. you don't want the oil as cold as possible, you want it at a stable operating temp. oil that is too cold is just as dangerous as oil that is too hot. t-stats are only ~$100.

 

Why would you want to get more oil coolers? There are already two...

 

This is not cheap.
http://www.rotaryextreme.com/oilcooler.html
But one thing I forgot is that they have 2 different sizes. The one that usually gets too cool is the 34 row one even with the t-stats.

and yes I have build a few engines. Only one I found had caked up oil in it but I though it was from having 202k original miles on it and a blown water seal.

 

Hondas... Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. Rotary's have a huge heat problem. One of the first upgrades on all 3rd gen 7's were infact a better oil cooling system. If it was not, than the people spending the money on the car were stupid. I know the FD's ran hotter b/c the exhaust ports were in the rotor housing, so the seals passed over the ports, meaning the oil on the seals did as well, meaning the oil got a lil warm. I know in the 8 we don't have that problem, but we still have the same concern of our engine being a rotary, inheretnly meaning heat will be a big issue. I am getting the interceptor soon, and have been running the car at most so far at 7 psi. The interceptor was able to run 13 psi at 75% duty cycle at 11.5. My point is, I would like to run higher boost, and if I wish to do so I feel one of the most essential mods would be oil cooling. I know in sum FD's people would put the radiator in front of the intercooler! I feel like oil cooling is a key ingrediant to making sure the car stays nice and healthy. A definite must have longevity mod with a turbo. And Beode, I'm not looking into more coolers, but perhaps just better ones, or maybe even 1 nice one.

 

First of all you can not have too much cooling ability. There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to cooling. A thermostat will keep the temps inline. That's what they are there for.

The 3rd gens suffered from poor cooling. This was the number 1 cause of engine o-ring failure. The oil system contributes to the cooling of the rotary. Just because some models only came with 1 cooler doesn't mean they shouldn't have had 2. Just because that car had a radiator doesn't mean it worked effectively. Remember, it didn't. It wasn't even adequate for stock power levels in city traffic. A very large mistake that many people make is to give intercooling more priority than engine cooling. As was pointed out, many people place their large intercoolers in front of their radiators and oil coolers. I see people all the time claim that their cars still cool just fine and that may be the case for a while. They are decreasing the total cooling ability of the engine though and this has more long term effects. On the 1st and 2nd gen RX-7s, there was a single oil cooler that was located in front of the lower part of the radiator. The 3rd gen at least improved this to move them to the corners of the car like the RX-8.

Sadly enough most of the rotary world puts oil cooling low on their priority list. They up the power before anything else. This is backwards to what should be done but it is the most tempting. You can only go so far before you really have no choice but to upgrade the cooling system. The next thing many people do is to improve the radiator while leaving the stock oil coolers. The oil system is the first system that should be addressed in the car when it comes to reliability and there is no such thing as going too far. I'd rather have more cooling capacity than I need rather than too little. Which one do you think is more reliable?

 

To me, you are more worry about your temps overall. Atleast 80% of your cooling come from the radiator, why not upgrade that first? Of all my FDs, that was the very first thing I did. Upgraded to a Koyo radiator. Which reminds me of the freezing mornings that I had to put a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator just to let the car warm up.

 

80% cooling from the radiator? Not even close. That is a huge misconception of the rotary and a huge reason for rotary cooling issues. Even BK Motorsports is having that issue right now with the Courage race car. I'm not even sure they know it. Almost half of the heat that comes out of a rotary goes out through the oil system. That's why even the best oil cooling systems from the factory are not adequate for high power and why the oil system should always be the first thing to be upgraded. They work fine for low power levels which is what you are at for normal street driving and why we get away with it. Prolonged high rpm use or high power use makes them sorely inadequate.

 

DAMN I knew it was bad but not that bad. Now that i see it this way upgrade them both!!!

 

Rotarygod, I could not agree more with what u said. Like I said I felt that oil cooling is often overlooked, but just by doing sum research and knowing how this engine works, oil is crucial!

 

So do you think the two stockers are inadequate?

 

the stockers are fine for stock hp. get a temp gauge and it'll tell you when they run out of cooling power.

 

been on the track(Roebling in Savanna) on a 100 degree day, speeds anywhere from 70mph to 128mph. Oil and cooling temps are ok(max on oil was 230F and coolant was 210) as long as you use common sense. I run RP 5W/30 and a 65/35 blend coolant. I have my car dialed in so I dont have to stay in the 8-9K range very much at all.
Temp (oil and coolant) is relative to rpm/load and speed. If you are "red light bazi-ing) on a summer night without any cool down time the coolant and the oil are going to get too hot. As long as you are moving a good amount of air--the present cooling is OK for NA. Turbo--I dont know. Oh by the way the protective screens we all have does block some air--take them off and your oil temp will go down just a bit--5-10 degrees. I dont ahve the a/c one
olddragger