Anyone ever installed an oil cooler on a vortech or paxton? Or is it not a good idea because it would cause an oil pressure drop before the oil supply nozzle, thus decreasing blower gear lube?

when i put a turbo on my 4.0 and installed an oil cooler it dropped the pressure about 35psi when engine was at normal temperature at about 2500rpms ... i had to install a stiffer spring to bring up the oil pressure and the pressure came up to 50 psi

The Paxton is self contained - you'll have to buy one of their specially built coolers. Won't affect your engine at all.


Bird

Ah, well nevermind about the Paxtons then :)

So, to clarify, (on a Vortech blower)....if I have the oil cooler installed on the line between the motor and the oil nozzle in the blower then that will drop the overall oil pressure in my engine?

Maybe this mod isn't really worth the effort, I just can't help thinking that with how hot my V-2 gets it must be raising the air charge temp significantly.

I haven't done it, but the thought has deffinately crossed my mind a time or two. The two things you want to watch out for are to make sure you don't drop the oil pressure to much, and to make sure that you don't cool the oil too much either. What you could do is install like a small 3 row universal cooler. It seems most oil coolers are larger than that and would drop temp and pressure more. I would think with a smaller cooler you would still get the heat loss but not so drastic and it should help to keep pressure up.

On a side note these Vortechs really create some heat. I was out cruising around the other day when it was about 65 and my intake temps were in the 135-148 range. YIKES! Gets even worse in the middle of the summer.

the oil cooler i bought installs between the engine and filter ... if you could get smaller lines and cooler then it probably would not drop oil pressure ... the lines that came with the cooler are 1/2

Anyone ever installed an oil cooler on a vortech or paxton? Or is it not a good idea because it would cause an oil pressure drop before the oil supply nozzle, thus decreasing blower gear lube?

Bunch of issues here ... For the Paxton, an oil cooler is almost essential for reliability. Due to their design using huge ball bearings as a form of planetary gear they generate a LOT of heat. Turbochargers also benefit from an oil cooler because of the heat from the turbine housing (exhaust). The newer design superchargers (Eaton, Whipple, Vortech) subject the bearings to a lot less heat, however there is still a lot of heat added to the oil as it lubricates and cools the supercharger bearings.

If you add an oil cooler to the S/C or turbo you need to make sure that you do not cool the oil to the extent that it does not properly lubricate the S/C or turbo bearings and adds so much drag that it steels valuable HP. My personal preference is an oil cooler on the engine that provides the dual benefit of cooling the engine oil that gets really hot due to the high loads and cylinder temperatures created in a supercharged engine. And, obviously, provides a more regulated oil temperature to the S/C or turbo (if it is fed by engine oil). Supercharger oil coolers on an Eaton or Whipple are not required IMO.

If your engine oil pressure drops more than a couple of pounds in a setup with an engine oil feed to the turbo or S/C there is a problem with the turbo or S/C (bearing clearances probably) !!!

cool thanks for the info....i'm going to use a 5x11 b&m inch trans cooler that I used to use for my a4ld...it's a stacked plate design that's supposed to flow well.

Let me know how it works. I'm very curious about this project. Do you have anyway of monitoring the drop in your oil temps? Do you have anyway of monitoring the drop in your intake temps?

I figured the oil temp would be reduced enough that I could feel the difference by touching the blower gear housing, but maybe not? :nixweiss:

Eventually I would like to get a guage to measure intake air temps as well, but right now I don't have that capability.

So I guess at the moment I really won't be able to tell you if it makes a difference :E It will be some time before I get around to doing it anyway, I've got a lot of other stuff to get done beforehand....like switching over from EEC-IV to the SDS ECU :headbang: