ok, here's my $.02 worh. first on the coolers. a cooler used to compensate
for an internal engine problem or a cooling system problem is not beneficial,
it's a bandaid. if all systems are good and you really have a high oil temp
(drive the car hard for a few miles and immediately pull the filter and stick a
thermometer into the filter for oil temp) install a cooler. we sell coolers and
lines but do not sell a pre-plumbed "kit" the kit forces you to put the cooler
where somebody else deciced it needed to be. also we caustion against using the
"sandwich" type cooler take-off that fits between the block adn the filter. this
puts the filter too close to the suspension upright and forces you to use a
small filter. a 10 row cooler is more than adequate for a street driven car
even with perfomrance engine mods. DO NOT BUY A USED OIL COOLER!!!!! since it
is not possible to clean out a cooler completely - it's aluminum and cannot be
"boiled" as you would boil a cast iron block - if the cooler had ever been on an
engine that had a blowup (bad rod bearing, broken piston, etc) the particles are
resting in the bottom of the cooler. the oil flow carries these particles in
suspension. when the engine was shut down, the particles fall to the bottom of
the cooler. rebuild the engine, start up and presto, the oil picks up the
particles adn there goes the engine. remeber you are working with bearing
clearances in the .0015" to .002" category. one .003" particle of aluminum will
wipe out a bearing.
early spits had a "windage tray stock. this was a piece of fine screen for lack
of a better description that filled the area over the deep portion of the pan.
windage trays keep the oil from splashing up so the throws of the crankshaft
will go through these sprays of oil this robs power. example, for $16 you can
buy a windage tray for a big block dodge. installation gives 12 hp increase on a
dyno just because the crank does not encounter the drag of fighting its way
through the oil spray. remeber, the engine becomes an air pum in the oil pan
from the force of the pistons moving down and pushing a volume of air into the
pan. very similar to being is a subway statiion andyou can feel the air
arriving before you see the train. ted
Terry L. Thompson wrote:
> I'm not using an rocker oil feed kit, but...
>
> I've heard from a couple of people that rocker-oil feed pipes tend to
> rob oil from the areas that rely on it's lubrication even more...the
> main bearings. And have another bad quality of making the oil even
> more foamy than it already is from the oil pump (it aerates the oil
> even more).
>
> I was watching hot-rod magazine when they put a sump pan on that had a
> tray that from my recollection had a mesh to it (like a siv) that supposedly
> kept aeration in the oil to a minimum.
>
> Would something like that work on a spitfire oil pan? One of the performance
> upgrades was to increase the depth of the oil pan and put in a "curved" oil
> pump. I've wondered if that would give room for such an item. (Ted?)
>
> -Terry
>
> At 08:46 AM 9/22/99 -0400, you wrote:
> >
> >Seriously people.... on your Spitfires
> >
> >how many of you are actually running an oil cooler?
> >(Y)es (N)o
> >how many of you are actually running an exterior rocker oil feed pipe?
> >(Y)es (N)o
> >
> >Paul Tegler
> >1973 BGT - Daily Driver
> >Rat - 1980 Spitfire w/ O/D - in re-hab
> >Punkin' - 1978 Spitfire - in Superb Shape!
> >email: wizardz@toad.net http://www.teglerizer.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
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