Oil coolers

[67 Fastback]

Are you guys running oil coolers on your cars . Car will be mainly street driven the occasional run Wednesday night street meets may also run sprints on local road circuit . Does the Fe need extra oil  cooling .
 
Mark

[jayb]

The only time I ever needed an oil cooler was on my supercharged engine; it helped keep the water temperature down too.  All my naturally aspirated high horsepower engines haven't required one, with the oil temperature during a long cruise only going about 20-25 degrees over the water temp.  So I would say no, unless you are running a blower of some sort.

[afret]

If your block is filled then you probably should run a cooler for street use, otherwise it's most likely not necessary.

[machoneman]

Not needed. My bro' still has his '70 Boss 302 that came with the OEM Ford oil cooler set-up. Took forever for the oil temps to come up, even on hot summer days. In cooler weather, forget having hot oil at all. ! He ended up using some plastic bags and black duct tape to block the fins.

[cammerfe]

As is true of most things that pertain to the FE, I believe it depends, very much, on your particular combination. If you are interested in tracking, I believe you can make use of a good oil cooler no matter what you have in the way of other hardware. There is such a thing as a thermostat-controlled valve that will cut a cooler in-'n'-out of your circuit. It may make sense for you to look in that direction. And I can tell you from experience that a Mecca accumulator with an electrically-operated valve is very worth having.

KS

[Heo]

Slight ot but...I have rebuilt many Mercedes Diesels they have
oilcoolers from the factory. Some used oil althought they where
rebuilt. The trick was to cover part of the oilcooler
Learned that from the Local Mercedes shop. They did it on new
cars that used oil.And they told me you must have an oiltemp
atleast over 60 deg. celsius. The wear on the engine drops
dramaticaly over 60deg acording to some Mercedes testing

[67 Fastback]

Thanks guys ,i am presently organising a Afco twin pass  radiator and was looking at buying one with a oil cooler built into it .My engine builder runs a small block Falcon sprint in Classic circuit races  and swears buy his present setup especially as it gets the oil up to running temps .

[lovehamr]

My application is different from most here as I run mine on open tracks as well as the street (even drove it to work today!)  But I've found a good 30 degree difference in oil temps between cooler or no.  I'm using a canton oil thermostat in-line to the oil cooler so my temps come up and I also live in south GA.  The location may be a large factor but even when I'm in the mountains of NC (40s) my oil temp will come up without to much problem.  I belive that the thermostat is the key, O/C when you need it but cut out when you don't.

[KMcCullah]

IMO, I think Ford used the oil cooler with their SCJ/drag package because of the low gear ratio in the rear end. Zinging down the highway for long periods at moderate RPM must have made additional heat in the oil that the Ford engineers didn't like.

[Heo]

I think the oil volume in a FE and all other US V8s is on the
low side. As it showed in Jays test how litle oil thats left in the
pan at high rpm so i think you are better of with a bigger pan
than an oil cooler.And if you run a cooler use a termostat
The Mercedes 500(305 cuin) V8s i had and have  takes about double the
oil volume (8 liters about 9 quarts).There is a warning in the
owners manual to not drive at higher rpms than 2500
before the oil is warm enough so the oil pressure drops
to 2 kg/cm at idle. So to cold oil is not god

[67 Fastback]

I have always allowed my cars to warm up ,so nothing will change with this build after so much effort and $.Will be running a large capacity T pan and a large radiator so hopefully it will workout well .I plan to fit a oil temp gauge so if it requires it i will look at a oil cooler .Block has been prepped and just waiting for more parts to complete assembly .
Mark