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Aftermarket oil coolers - are there any drawbacks?

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I just had a little chat with a guy who has MK3 VR6, and swears that he had oil intercooler fitted due to high oil temps, but removed it immediately after he checked oil pressure. Oil pressure was too low, says it's probably due to "longer oil recirculation circuit" when aftermarket cooler was installed.

Asked him what oil cooler exactly he was using, and he replied it was "home made" :)

I was thinking about fitting Mocal oil cooler, and now i'm asking you guys... Has anyone noticed drop in oil pressure after fitting oil intercooler?

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um he probably had a dodgy sandwich plate I find that mine opens too early so it takes longer to get up the the desired temp but the pressure sits arouns 13psi on idle which is fine and goes up well with revs. I have a mocal and would say it is a must have first upgrade, my oil temps never go past 100c now and they only hit that when I get stuck in heavy traffic after a very long spirited run.

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LOL, pressure will higher with a cooler, not lower, because the oil will be cooler and therefore more viscous.

 

The pressures on my VR6 are all over the place since switching to 10W/50 full synthetic and using a Mocal, much higher than VW's reference figures, but it's not affecting anything. No oil blowing out of the seals, no adverse wear on the chain tensioner, no smoke from the turbo or engine, so I wouldn't worry too much about pressures, unless of course they're too low like your friend's "home made" one. I bet it leaked :D

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:lol:

Well it made a little sense to me at first, if you make your oil system bigger by adding longer plumbing and larger capacity oil cooler, then pressure at same temperature should be lower than in non-modified oil system, just because you made your system larger and therefore the pressure drops accordingly. However, no matter how bad the oil pump he had, it should be able to make additional oil pressure for now larger capacity system! I bet there was something else there, maybe he used crappy oil, so bad that oil pump couldn't achieve proper oil pressure. Who will know... :nuts:

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The pressures on my VR6 are all over the place since switching to 10W/50 full synthetic and using a Mocal, much higher than VW's reference figures, but it's not affecting anything.

 

Since when did VW have reference figures for a blown VR? ;)

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Even with my mocal i still see 110-112C oil in traffic or in a built up area where there are lots of speedbumps with a lot of stop start driving. Any ideas? Water rarely goes over 90 though.

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Well the cooler requires air to pass through it to work so oil coolers won't do anything when the car is stationary. Just like the radiator except that has a fan which kicks in to draw air over the fins when the coolant gets too hot i.e typically when the car is stationary. You can fit a fan onto your oil cooler if you like but 110-112 isn't desperately high.

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got a kit from G-werks its a good kit all pipes and plate and rad included its a bitch to fit as the G60 has no space to work around the oil filter

fitted the rad next to the water rad just had to drill some holes in the plastic trim to let air in to the rad temps dropped by about 20 deg C and it cools down alot quicker after a spirted run no more sitting outside your house engine ticking over for 15 mins waiting for oil to cool down

 

stu .,.

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The pressures on my VR6 are all over the place since switching to 10W/50 full synthetic and using a Mocal, much higher than VW's reference figures

 

I want to connect up a VDO oil pressure gauge in my VR6. Have got my hands on a VDo 0-5 bar gauge and have worked out which sender to use... but what is the oil pressure on a standard VR6, 1) so that I know what it should be when I get the gauge working and 2) to check I don't actually need a 0-10 bar gauge!

 

Cheers...

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Not sure if this is teh best place for this, but on a reent 400 mile trip mainly motorway, wy oil temp stayed at about 92, water at about 58-60 (seems a bit toooo low). But as soon as i came into traffic in the town, oil went up to about 106-108, some 110 during some stop start driving, water went up to about 85-90, so the fans kicked in briefly. I've got a mocal and 2 x 11" spals. I'm just a bit concerend with the oil temps and usually driving around town, especially in summer the oil will sit permanently at 110C. Any comments? The other thing is when the water temp hits 84-86 the fans trip in for about 5-8 seconds and then cut out? Surely they should run for about a minute at least, i'm sure the temp sensor cant be THAT sensitive? I recently flushed the cooling system and replaced the thermostat housing. I didnt replace any of the sensors although i did give them a clean up.

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I DIYed a mocal oil cooler and sandwich plate. I have fairly long hoses running from passenger to driver's side.

So I needed to put in more oil about 1 liter more to compensate the volume of oil the hoses take up not to starve the pump.

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