Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 06:18:37 -0600
Reply-To: Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Mazda RX7 oil cooler on Westy
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I've made several post recently on an RX7 oil cooler that I installed.
http://williamwareagency.com/forsale/stanvan/rx7cooler1.jpg
I'm not saying that this is the end all, fix all solution to your Air
Cooled Type IV engine cooling problems.
I had been considering an oil cooler for over a year before I rebuilt my
engine.
After the rebuild I installed a full set of gauges, CHT, Oil T, Volts,
Oil P, simply because I wanted to know how my new engine was behaving.
After seeing the 130 Celsius temp a few times I decided that an oil
cooler was in order. I tried two coolers before installing the RX7
cooler. They both worked fine. One was just an additional stock type IV
cooler on an adapter,
http://williamwareagency.com/forsale/stanvan/cooladp.jpg the other was a
Volvo Diesel oil cooler
http://williamwareagency.com/forsale/stanvan/oilcooler1.jpg. The fact
that they worked fine in 30-70 degree weather wasn't too much
encouragement when the problem I'm trying to address is that we have over
30 consecutive days of over 100 degrees here in Texas and I often fight
head winds to get to my camping sites unless I just go to the ones with a
tailwind assist.
After checking out what vendors had to offer I decided that a cooler kit
that was designed to sell retail for $80.00 was just an $80.00 kit. I
perceived that a very fine cooler that had a thermostat built in and a
retail price of over $400.00 might be a good $20.00 investment.
I futzed around with this cooler for a month, an hour at a time, trying
to decide if it had the volume, cooling ability, how the thermostat
worked, flow restrictions and possible mounting locations on my Westy.
All that said; This is still a test project that I'm working on ........
nothing is cast in iron at this point. I'm not advocating that every Air
Cooled Vanagon or Westy owner make this kind of installation on their
vehicle.
So far I'm pleased with the cooler, it was a relatively inexpensive and
the installation just wasn't all that complicated.
I've invested about $80.00 in this installation and unless it proves to
be something really special that I haven't seen yet, then the $80.00 kit
is a good deal too.
If I'm way off track on this cooler and its advantages I'll post my
results to the list so everybody else can take the simple approach and
not reinvent the wheel as I've tried to do.
Stan Wilder
83 Air Cooled Westfalia
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