how many people are useing oil coolers for there boats? i am thinking of putting one on mine. do they really work?
when the correct size cooler for your application and needs is employed, they absolutely work! The real questions are, what are your current oil temps, cruise times etc. and do you even need to cool your oil? To do it right, figure on the better portion of $500-700 bucks. Defintely something you want to think about before just jumping into.
Chris
i really dont know my oil temp, but i am going to install a temp gauge tommorow. i have a mild 454 with a 12 quart oil pan on it and a Perma-Cool remote dual oil filter kit on it. im really not to worried on the price since i work for Perma-Cool and they have a proto type i will use if i want to put it on. i just was wondering what the advatages and disadvantages of the coolers are. i just dont want to put it on and have one more thing to worrie about springing a leak or breaking. there are alot of things i learned about boats lately that you really have to keep tack of.
I use one. It was actually on the original build when I bought it from Froggystyle. Had the engine rebuilt last year and my builder recommended oil temp NOT to exceed 260 degrees. That would be impossible for me without a cooler.
Here's a pic of the oil cooler, in the lower right corner, chrome deal.
http://www2.***boat.com/image_center...gine_2-med.jpg
I'm looking at running one to but have a couple questions like how you plumb it in, should you run the water into it before the motor or run preheated water out of the motor into it. my water temp is normally around 160, then should you plumb oil before or after my remote filter. Thx Adam
has anyone had any oil coolers fail on them?
The way you plumb your water through your cooler and subsequently the rest of the cooling system depends on your needs, plain and simple. You could tap both sides of the bowl so that you had a separate feed for the cooler and then just dumped it overboard.
My water is routed pump>cooler>crossover>motor>divider>headers>out the exhaust. It works for me, but that doesn't mean it will work for your setup. I notice that as I build pressure in the cooling system at higher RPMs, the efficiency of the cooler increases, probably because of a little more dwell time for the water in the cooler core. If I ran the cooler on it's own circuit I might see a loss of efficency as it might not stack up pressure at higher RPMs like the setup does now. Once again, what works for one, may not for another.
As far as cooler failures, there are basically two ways they can fail. The tubes in the core of the cooler can get cloged and reduce the amount of surface area available to cool the oil. The other and more potentially expensive faliure is when the core leaks into the shell and allows water and oil to mix in your cooler. This would be bad for obvious reasons. You should always pressure test your cooler before you install it and make sure you see no water comming out of the oil shell. If you do, then you should have it professionally checked out before proceding with the installation.
Chris
i really dont know my oil temp, but i am going to install a temp gauge tommorow. i have a mild 454 with a 12 quart oil pan on it and a Perma-Cool remote dual oil filter kit on it. im really not to worried on the price since i work for Perma-Cool and they have a proto type i will use if i want to put it on. i just was wondering what the advatages and disadvantages of the coolers are. i just dont want to put it on and have one more thing to worrie about springing a leak or breaking. there are alot of things i learned about boats lately that you really have to keep tack of.
Knowing that Perma Cool is pretty much into the automotive market, I'm going to assume that you might not have access to the proper kind of heat exchanger for use as an oil cooler. Most automotive oil coolers are air/oil. In a boat you need a water/oil cooler because there is no airflow in the engine compartment, and because you have access to a nice supply of cool water.
If PermaCool does have a water/oil exchanger you could use, you'll want to look at the pressure and temperature ratings on the construction. You don't want something that will start to re-flow the solder at a low temp and jeopardize the integrity of the cooler.
Hope that helps,
Chris
a cooler will help with keeping the oil viscosity up, keeping oil pressure up---you will need to monitor oil temp once installed and make sure it doesn't get much lower than 150 deg to keep condensation from forming ---ideal would be 150-180---if you boat where water temps are fridgid, then you might consider plumbing it side stream, with a controlled amount of heated water out of the motor entering the cooler which should help in warming up the oil faster also---you can controll the amount of water flow by using different sized orifices or a valve which will eventually determine what the oil temp out of the cooler and into the motor will be
the cooler i was thinking of testing is a tube type of water injected cooler. it isnt out and they dont know if they will produce it. just a proto type. i myself am skeptikal since i really dont know the pros and cons of it. my thing is that i just dont want another thing to worry about. if they are typicaly not apt to fail i will put it on. if oil coolers have a problem of failing i dont want to install it. has anyone had one fail? or even heard of one?
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