Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 12:36:15 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: [VW gas I4 Conversions] Extra Oil cooler?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Thought about this myself ..
what's the max pressure the rear heater core is designed to withstand ?
it runs at maybe 14psi ...
so might be built to handle ...whatever,........25 to 30 psi.
what pressure does the oil system run at, or up to ?
80 psi. max cold.
why use a part not desiged for the use on a critcal system like the engine's oil system.
I have thought this a few times though ..
- it might be fun to use the rear heater as an addtional engine coolant cooler..
( which it is already ) ..
but have the fan-driven exit air go though the floor of the van, rather than into the interior.
----- Original Message -----
From: Don Hanson
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM ; Vanagons and VW Buses (Bays) with VW inline gas engines
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 9:40 AM
Subject: [VW gas I4 Conversions] Extra Oil cooler?
Hi all, I'll put the question at the top of this post, then add some details below..
It occurred to me I might use my Vanagon rear heater as an auxiliary oil cooler. Yes/no?
the rest of the story: I'm running an inline 4 ABA 2.0 liter VW motor in my 5sp low top van with a partial westie interior. I have the rear heater out and sitting on my bench, with the coolant lines properly plugged and the van has been running fine for about 20k miles.
I am running the normal VW oil/coolant heat exchanger between the block and the oil filter.
I recently flogged my van hard on a mountain trip. Most of the time the coolant temp stayed normal and the oil temp was OK. The Oil Pressure at speed was fine also. On the hardest longest steepest climb that I encountered, I hit the hill bottom at around 80mph and kept the pedal down, just to see how it would go. This was probably around a 7-8% grade for about 6 miles of climbing. My speed slowly declined to around 70 with the pedal on the floor, and held at that speed...In my van, that translates to around 4000rpm. My Oil pressure was reading about 60psi(normal for that rpm), coolant temp climbed about one needle width to mid-way between the 'cold zone' and the LED blinker. My Oil temp went from it's normal ~210f up to around 230f. At about mile 5 of this climb, I saw some smoke behind and got out of the throttle. My gauges were doing nothing alarming, but the oil temp was higher than I like, I guess. So i am going to add a real oil cooler. I am planning on getting the oil from a thermostatically controlled sandwich plate at the oil filter, then taking it to a remote cooler and back.
I began by going to the BAT (British American Transfer) site where I've sourced my previous oil cooling parts (Mocal)... I started to work up a parts list, went onto the Samba and looked at how Tencentlife had done his, etc. Then I recalled my rear heater unit, sitting unused in my parts pile. I dug it out. It has the right size heat exchanger (radiator) it will fit where I plan to put one (driver's side D-pillar) and it has a fan already built in, should I find I need one. The plumbing connectors are about the right diameter for the hoses, etc..
If I can use that heater set-up rather than buying a Mocal, I can save myself about $150. What think you all? Would the VW standard Vanagon rear heater be ok to run hot engine oil through? The oil would be in the 230- 280f temp range, max.... and I see 50-65psi at operating temp for oil pressure.
Thanks, Don Hanson
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