As long as the conversation is still rolling... anyone have a take on banjo fittings offered for the 22m fittings on Setrab coolers?

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1361909157

They are nice and short, but they are also $39/ea, that's $10/ea more than these guys:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1361909326

And logic tells me a nice clean radius 90° fitting like that is going to outflow a banjo any day. I mean, I trust a company like Mocal to "do it right" but if I'm bothering to use -10 everywhere to keep flow unrestricted, why would I want to use a banjo fitting?

Or am I Hustlering this to death?

Oh, I see. I thought you had a setrab at one point.

I was looking into the bomber style front bumper its pretty mouthy and has two good sized holes on the sides were i plan on putting my oem fog lights but im still in a tug of war between full track use or a modest track car that still looks nice on the street. good advice with the oil cooler not being mounted upfront i had slightly forgotten about the engine cooling genius mazda did. I did see that FM has a rerout kit to help with that problem but I havent decided if thats a upgrade im using since im still in infant stage for my build atm.

Sorry to thread jack but hopefully it'll be somewhat relevant. Wanted to re-visit the Mocal t-stat:

1) If car is mainly being run during the spring/summer/early fall for lapping days only, is it really necessary to even have a tstat for an oil cooler setup? Outdoor temps would be >60degF

2) What is main advantage of the Mocal tstat vs. say this one from Summit:

Derale Performance Fluid Control Thermostats 25719 - SummitRacing.com

Besides AN fittings, is there a huge risk of running something 1/3 price of Mocal? Does it fail open by design?


Just trying to see where I can save $$ here for my setup. Unfortunately don't have a tstat yet so just on the fence on whether or not I actually need one.

Not a complete thread jack, but,

What is the consensus with a laminar flow oil to water heat exchanger? Laninova
One less component to find airflow for. With a coolant reroute running forward on the RH side, the lines would not have to be that long, you would not need a thermostat because the coolant would warm up the oil when cold and then cool it when hot. the 90mm unit is said to equal a 10-13 row matrix, and the 180mm one a 13-19 row matrix.
The cons I see are price, and you have to have enough cooling capacity in your radiator. with coolant coming off the head at 180-210, that should keep oil temps in a good range.

Ok, fair warning, I DON'T have an oil cooler. This is based on what I've read here over the past couple years while trying to sort this out. Someone correct me if I'm off base with any of this...

GraemeD: You are right, the unit acts like a massive version of the factory pre-heater/cooler we already have. I could see faster warm ups for sure. I haven't seen anyone actually use one on the Miata though. There is a guy somewhere in Europe or the UK who put a rotrex in an NB (I want to say it was a Mazdaspeed) and was looking at the Laninova to cool the rotrex oil rather than having yet another heat exchanger up in the bumper. He has a great write up on the temp delta info that (IIRC) includes some actual testing data. I can't find the link right now but I'll look. But I agree with you, I don't like the idea of moving all that heat into the already questionable cooling system, unless you are running a truly massive radiator (like the Trackspeed) and you really have your ducting squared away. You are right, they are also dammed expensive.

rkim: You need the proper level of heat in your oil for it to flow correctly. Running a cooler without a thermostatic control is probably a bad idea on the street, I just couldn't see the oil getting up to temp properly. For a track car, you are probably OK as long as you let things warm up correctly first. (One of the track guys can probably answer this better than I.) Around here we tend to use/recommend the Mocal because it works. Lots of guys running them and no issues/failures that I'm aware of, other than people not using the correct BSP > AN adapters. I think I've seen at least one person running a Derale, and a couple guys running Greddy/GREX adapters (check out Lokiel's link above.) There is a whole thread about oil coolers somewhere on here where everyone extols the virtues of thermostats.

OnelameNB1: Its not that putting the heat exchanger in front of the radiator is a super bad idea, you just have to be prepared to take that thermal hit in the rest of your cooling system. With a stock radiator and factory "ducting" its probably not a good idea at all. With an uprated radiator and solid ducting in place, you can probably get away with it. Again, this is probably more for a track oriented car than a daily driver.

Someone asked me this one time: Are you currently having oil temp issues? Do you have an oil temp gauge? Do you know you actually NEED an oil cooler? Plenty of guys out there running HPDE events without them, just run a slightly heavier oil, warm everything up properly and have fun.

1) I am not running a t-stat. you can block off the oil cooler if you find yourself running too cool. Considering there is a number of guys who have seen none-to-little change in temp from the FM kit (ie with low air flow), I think this will be adequate.

2)the Mocal t-stat is included into the Sandwhich plate.

3) Are you talking about T-stats or sandwhich plates? You still have to buy a sandwhich plate in the end. If you get the SummitRacing part:
$53 T-Stat
$30 cheap plate
~ $80 bucks total. Not too far from the Mocal unit really.

Maruha makes a laminar oil to coolant oil cooler kit. possibly some plumbing advantages over an oil to air cooler, but as stated above you would need to have your coolant temps well controlled before adding this as a cooling device.
Water cooled oil cooler (heat exchanger)

EO2K, thanks for the info. This is one area I'm going to cheap out on for now and monitor.

^This. Actually had a chat with a co-worker today and we both decided this would be the best route in terms of value. Good to see hear your experience too.

I'm planning on throwing it on the passenger side and possibly do some sort of a small cutout on the bumper w/ducting so I'll just block it whenever streeting it for now and keep an eye out.

Oh and I should've been more clear. Picked up the Cobalt kit and can't find any specs stating tstat's built into sandwich. I was comparing the remote Mocal tstat vs. remote tstats on Summit so no need for an extra sandwich for me.

Just get a sandwich adapter with thermostat. That's how I run my 19 row Setrab on my Subaru. No need to worry about oil running too cool, but the blockoff plate works too if you have it in a convenient location to install/uninstall quickly.

Here's my setup of the FM cooler but with -10 lines and a GREX sandwich plate:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1362371689

Wow I guess when you haven't worked on (or even looked at) your miata all winter you forget how cramped everything is up front. Thanks for the pic, I was imagining A LOT more room for ducting.

Yeah man it was hard enough taking the pic!!