External Oil Cooler

I have not been able to find a commercially available external oil cooler kit for the 996. LN makes a plate to remove the factory heat exchanger and adapt -12 lines in its place through the use of a -10 to -12 adapter. There are also commercially available sandwich plates that could be adapted to work with the LN spin on filter which utilizes a 13/16-16, the one below from Mocal has the benefit of being less expensive that the LN and also having a built in thermostat - something that would needed to be added to the LN product. First question, I have my own ideas but would like input from anyone else with an opinion. Would your preference be to source from the stock location or the filter housing ? The filter housing is certainly an easier install, it would also retain the factory heat exchanger to aid in faster warm up. The LN setup would eliminate a risk of intermix failure point. What say you. Next, I am looking at running a Setrab 16X6 20 row fan with 2 342CFM fans mounted where the passenger side muffler was. I will take advantage of the muffler mounting bracket as a head start on mounting. The plumbing should not be too bad either sourcing from the stock location or the filter housing and the line run should be kept very short. The goal is to minimize pressure loss through the system to the greatest extent possible. The plan would be to run -12 lines. Note... a very smart dude gave me the location idea... He can chime in if he chooses. I have included a CAD design of the location fitment ( Cardboard Aided Design ) Next question : What do the technical minded folks around here think of the general outline of a plan ? Would love feedback on either thought process or different hardware to consider. Please keep responses specific to the idea of mounting an external oil cooler to the car, methods, hardware or experience.

I would pass on this I ran an external cooler on m 996 race car or a season, it was mounted in the rear behind the wheel with a fan pack vented through the bumper. lost about a bar of pressure at high rpms. switched to the stock 997 cooler and cured the problem. saw the same problems in a Cayman. stick with oil to water coolers

Quotes source post: 17311881

Interesting...Really good info, thanks ! Pressure drop is something I have been trying to educate myself on. Questions: Do you have any pics of the setup ? Did you run off the stock location or an oil filter adapter ? What was the info on the cooler (Rows and dimension), lines (size) and fittings (Any 90 degree fittings, if so, how many) ? Do you still have the parts ?

Oil temps with the stock 997 cooler will be fine I never run above 260 in a 1.5-hour enduro at 90 degrees. Oil to air coolers do not work on these cars unless you run a front-mounted cooler plumbed to the oil sump with an eternal pump. I did exactly what you are planning with the LN adapter plate It didn't work.

What were the temps you saw with the heat exchanger ? Just wondering if it didn't work because of the temps or the pressure drop - or both. My preference would actually be to use a filter adapter and leave the stock water/air in place...both for the warmup and the additional cooling over just an external exchanger. I have heard of people running to the sump from a front mounted exchanger with an external pump as well... maybe someone with experience with that setup can chime in. Again, thanks for the info, not questioning your result, just interested in your experience getting there. ETA... Just seeing the pictures... 1st - Boss car, dig it. 2nd - I do have some concerns with the mounting angle as well as the fact that the single fan is not shrouded. Not that it would do anything for the pressure drop you experienced but I do wonder what difference you would have seen from a temperature standpoint with a setup like I put in the OP with the dual shrouded fans and having the cooler oriented more in line with the airflow generated by the tire. Was it done like that to try to keep the lines going into the cooler a straight shot and not have sharp bend fittings feed and return ?

I did do an remotel cooler on a Spec Cayman, where a larger 997 cooler won't it with the stock plenum. I used a modified ln adapter plate with an LN Cayane oil cooler, "they use it on their PDK oil cooler package" We were running the same fan pack setup as you are thinking about initially in the rear bumper cutout It didn't work temps were 280 with crappy oil pressurer

Quotes source post: 17312335

Cool - the info is valuable and I appreciate you sharing your experience...pretty trick setup on the Cayman.

I had problems with both temps and oil pressure I run the same setup on the other side for a trans cooler that works well.

All the external coolers add complexity and points of failure you don't have to do it on the 996 just fit the larger 997 cooler and make sure you're running the center radiator, We had to do it on the cayman but it was not easy to fit the pluming.

The center rad and 997 cooler is definitely something I will be considering, thanks !

Quotes source post: 17311418

We've had customer run air to oil coolers on their track M96 cars and had mixed results. You have to have good airflow. What others have done is run our larger oil to water heat exchanger: https://lnengineering.com/large-oil-...anger-kit.html We took the Cayenne Turbo cooler and had them made with extra plates to increase the capacity. It's significantly larger volume that any factory engine oil cooler Porsche uses and when coupled with a 3rd radiator, there is plenty of capacity in the cooling system to make this cooler do it's job. We have had sever Spec Cayman guys run them successfully. They have just modified our plate to add coolant in/out provisions, however it is out plan to offer it as a kit at some point, but we don't currently have access to a 996 in our shop. We're doing a bolt on Cayman kit right now.

Are you actually having oil temperature issues during track days, or is this a preventative measure?

Quotes source post: 17313548

Cant confirm as I have no data to share and as you know, there is no oil temp gauge in the car. I am however partly attributing oil pressure instability with elevated oil temperature.

Quotes source post: 17313469

Thanks Charles, if building a custom air/water system nice to know you have an upgraded cooler. Thanks. Hopefully you�ll get a car in to make your kit. I definitely had concerns regarding airflow in account and thought 684 CFM would take up enough of the slack for non optimal location. More research ! Thanks again for posting.

Laminova makes multuple sizes of fluid to water heat exchangers including some dual fluid so that you could even combine trans and oil cooling into one unit. Pretty well-proven tech.

Quotes source post: 17313859

Mark Hill posted earlier in this thread using our Cayenne cooler setup in their Spec Cayman he built. He previously used a large Laminova cooler and it could not keep the oil cool.

Maybe adding a 4th radiator (Honda Civic radiator) in the rear fender missing muffler space, plumbed into the heater hose circuit would be another way to dissipate excess heat. The plumbing would be simple and no chance of effecting oil flow/pressure. The heater core could also be used as a 1/2 radiator if set to full high fan/temp settings and directed to exit out side windows. I have used heater on high with windows down to help cool off the engine temps in extreme situations before, it helps much more than you would think. So a recap, two CSF radiators up front, a center radiator up front, a Honda radiator in the fender, the heater core on full blast = 4 1/2 radiators and the 997 oil cooler. Keeping the coolant/engine temps really low (160F-180F) will translate to lower/controlled oil temps? And no plumbing nightmare !!

I�m glad I read this post! I�ve ordered an Improved Racing MX-245 air to oil cooler, the largest IR makes, along with a 205 deg F thermostat to plumb into my LS1 swapped 996. I have the center radiator as well since my car was previously OEM Tiptronic (6MT now). This MX-245 is still BNIB, so I�m going to return or sell it and go with the BRS XL from LN Engineering. Researching more and more on the subject of airflow in these cars and how to reduce temps has steered me away from typical air to oil coolers, thankfully. For those interested, I plan to mount the BRS XL on the passengers side, probably where the mufflers used to live, and plumb into the heater lines that are near there underneath. I already have a remote oil filter setup, 10AN lines run throughout. Since my setup is unique that it is a LS1, I might plumb in an oil accumulator such as an Accusump. Cheers!

I bought this for my LS swap after speaking with PWR - they said this should be plenty for a 600HP engine with sufficient water cooling after doing a bunch off math based on specs I gave them. I'm running the radiator setup off a turbo. Hoping it works to plan. https://www.pwrna.com/product/lightw...4-inlet-outlet

I think that�ll be a great setup! If I had a place to easily plumb 1-3/4� lines to that cooler I�d be interested as well. Since I used 20AN hoses for my cooling system, I needed something to plumb into the heater return line. This should be enough for my little LS1 I�m stoked to see your LS3 monster come to life! Thanks for posting all these tech threads, they�ve been handy.