Oil cooler fitting with power steering

[Lauren]

Have been really looking at how to get this oil cooler fitted. With power steering and aircon it really is making it difficult. The bracket for the power steering is very close to the oil filter, so you can't take the pipes forward to the front of the car.

The sandwich plate can also not point to the rear of the engine as the starter motor is in the way. It can't point down because the engine mount is in the way.

About the only position it can go is about 1 O'oclock. This has it pointing at the exhaust manifold so I can't use the supplied fittings. Then it would have to double back with an elbow straight off the sandwich plate. Even then it's still got to clear the exhaust.

Looks very tricky as there is not a lot of room down there. Going to likely have to remove the exhaust manifold, distributor and get a friend to get some hard pipes made up with appropriate bends to do it as they will take up less room than hose. Then I think we'll join to the flexi hose and take that round the side of the rad by enlarging the hole where the aircon pipes go through to the condensor.

Then there is the small matter of making a mounting bracket for the cooler which is not that straightforward due to the air con rad being in the way so it will have it to be mounted much closer to the front bumper.

Fortunately my friend Tom is going to get all the pipework and mountings sorted out, but it's going to take a bit of sorting.

[assassin10000]

Why don't you use a remote mount oil thermostat and oil filter setup?

Something like these:
http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/produ...Thermostat
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/EAR-501ERL/
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HDA-163/

Andrew

[Lauren]

I could do Andrew, though it still doesn't solve the problem as it'll still have a sandwich plate. Plus it's a fair bit more expense.

I think we can do it with the sandwich plate, it's just going to be tricky really.

We just need to check the sandwich plate will fit, though the car has gone off to the bodyshop for a week today, so will have to wait until it comes back.

[Bean]

have a chat with the folks from japspeed and or apexperformance, they might sell you just the adapter plates for the relocation kit. IMHO this should work as the hose will lead away at a 90° angle to the crank, so just like the oilfilter itself at the moment - then you can route the hoses along the chassisrail to the front. 1 hose from block to filter, 1 from filter to cooler and 1 from cooler back to block. sell your sandwich plate to fund part of the relocation kit.

Cons: will cost you more than making hell of a bodge
Pros: nice and proper solution, 2 takeoffs for sensor at the remote filter adapter, oilfilter away from the heat of the manifold (less messy to change and no more burns)

[Lauren]

We'll have to wait till the car is back from the bodyshop to try the sandwich plate on.

Only then will we know if we are going to have to go for a relocation kit or similar. Nothing will be bodged. If the sanwich plate can go on okay and we can get the pipework sorted of which some will be done in hardpipe to avoid unnecessary connections and it looking a mess then we will go for that.

Thanks for the links though, should we need a relocation kit/adaptor plate etc, I will be looking at those a bit more closely.

I have a good friend who does fabrication on race/sprint cars and the like who is pretty talented when it comes to these kind of things so if he can find a good way to do it, we'll roll with that.