I've been really considering transitioning my car from daily driver/autocross toy to daily driver/autocross/HPDE toy. Anyway, I've been told that the biggest things to worrty about during HPDE events that aren't much of a concern for autocross is the cooling effiency and the braking capabilities. For this reason I went out and bought a oil cooler, a tranny cooler, and a power steering cooler. Will this help as much as I'm told it will? The coolers came with a mini fan (~5" diameter), but I'm not sure where to mount them. I don't want to put them all in front of the radiator because that will just slow and heat up the airflow to the radiator. Are there any other places that I could put the coolers? I was thinking about putting the combo cooler that came with the fan in the front drivers side corner of the car where that black plastic piece is that covers something up. I figured because the fan is there, I wouldn't need a ton of airflow to it so that would probably be the ideal place. Any other ideas/opinions?

Thanks,
Mike

 

A good oil cooler is very important for heavy duty usage,
importance of the tranny and P/S coolers depends on
how the car is used,most of the heat generated by the
tranny is from the fluid being thrashed in the torque
converter when under"stall"conditions,steady speeds
generate far less heat. The tranny cooler on my car is
under the battery area with a thermostat controlled fan
(8"specially made fan) The Oil radiator is mounted in the
charcol canister area behind the LH headlights with 8"
high velocity fan,draws air from the holes behind the
headlights and the opening into the fender(i like to
run the engine oil at 220-230*) All my coolers and
parts for the setups were salvaged from junked cars,
the coolers from an'83 impala cop car,P/S cooler from
a '90s jeep(from about '86 on,thirds have a light-
duty P/S cooler -steel tubing that loops under the
radiator support)

 

If you could plumb it in there some how a stock radiator fan switch would close at about 230-240 and would be the perfect temp controler for your oil.

 

I have that stock power steering cooler. I got all the coolers and fan for $45 at a swap meet. The guy proved that the fan worked too. I'll get part numbers on the stuff this afternoon.

Good idea on the junkyard scavenge. I'll probably do that with my dad when he gets his mutant of truck running.