M35 Oil Cooler Adventure

[Mr 20Valve]

Well, being the genius that I am, I decided that the easiest & cheapest way to install an oil cooler to my car was to buy one off eBay...

Please queue up in the line to the left in order to laugh at my expense.

And I do mean expense.

I bought an eBay oil cooler kit for $135 (posted) back in June with the plans of fitting it up & being awesome.

The pics looked like this:

: with the plan of routing an oil to air oil cooler core from a sandwich plate between the oil filter & oil to water oil-cooler sandwich plate thats already fitted to the block.

Then I received the 'item' some 10 days later direct from Shenzen, China. w00t!

This is what it looked like in the box when I opened it:

As you can see, it's got a relocation kit... not really what I wanted, seeing as though theres a poofteenth of nothing when it comes to space for relocating your oil filter in the engine bay of an M35.

So I complained that I didn't get what I ordered & was contacted various girls named 'Michelle' & 'Brandy' in Guangzou to address the fact that I hadn't received what was in the picture (being a simple sandwich plate with -10AN oulets & a place on the top to screw in a factory oil filter...)

So they graciously sent me a replacement adapter to match what was in the photos.

Some 16 days later, I received the correct adapter & got to work fiting everything up...

Until I realised that the cooler core was about 300x300 in size & I couldn't get it to sit in an acceptable place inside my front bar where it would do any good...

Luckily, Just Jap is 15 minutes from my house, so I trotted down to see them & picked up the smallest of their oil coolers, which measured about 90 x 250 & had the -10 nipples that I needed.

'Cool', I hear you say!

Well, yes, everything was cool up until I fitted everything up to the car, with core in place above the intercooler & behind the grille.

Then the leaks started...

Every single one of the yum-cha AN fittings leaked.

That and the braided hose was so soft, it kinked trying to go around a gentle radius bend.

Luckily, I have a Pirtek dealer 5 minutes from my house, so I trotted up to see them & came away with two brand new braided hoses featuring -10 Proflow fittings.

'Finally', I hear you say!

So, it turns out I ended up using absolutely nothing from the original package I was sent!

So the install was fairly straightforward from then on, with a couple of brackets supporting the core, a 90deg fitting on the nipple closest to the centre of the radiator, running the hose behind the bar reo & a 45deg fitting on the other nipple, angling the hose down past the i/c piping.

The hoses then wrapped around the washer bottle & back into the engine bay through the inner guard liner & met up with the sandwich plate.

Good news: the Proflow fittings don't leak at all! w00t!

Pics:

Brackets

Fittings & hoses

And the finished product

The moral of the story:

Don't buy yum-cha oil cooler kits from eBay...

[PN-Mad]

Lol. Good story man. Plenty of times I've been back and forth to pirtek.

Did you have any ability to read before and after results?

[Brick]

How much was the cost of all the right bits?

[ClassOne]

So you learnt the hard way, I don't know how many times I've told my mates not to buy those shit china kits!

Just go buy a core and buy the fittings and line from speedflow or who ever you choose, and make the thing yourself.

Your yum cha kit leaks because the fittings are not matched.

They are not hydraulic fittings.

Inside the fittings should be a 45 degree taper

Male and female respectively to couple together and make a mechanical seal.

Look at your relo plates, there is no taper at all.

The oil pressure just forced the oil thru the threads and leaky leaky.

Buy Australian , buy speedflow, don't winge about the money, because as seen here, you end up doing it right the 2nd time.

Good to see you learnt a valuable lesson and also thanks for a detailed post, maybe no guys will think twice before being Jew bags and wasting there money in china on inferior products that clearly will never ever work.

[Mr 20Valve]

Lol. Good story man. Plenty of times I've been back and forth to pirtek.

Did you have any ability to read before and after results?

I've got an oil temp gauge ready to go on, but the gauge sender ports on the sandwich plate are in a spot that will make the senders interfere with the aircon lines, so I'm waiting on a couple of 45deg 1/8npt elbows that will angle them out of the way.

So no, I can't tell what difference there is now that the oil cooler is on there, but once the gauges are in, I'm planning on bypassing the coolant from the factory sandwich plate & having the new oil cooler doing all the work.

I'll report back once I've got results.

[Mr 20Valve]

How much was the cost of all the right bits?

The core from Just Jap was $90

The new hoses & fittings from Pirtek were $210

So over $430 all up counting a sandwich plate that cost me $130

[Mr 20Valve]

So you learnt the hard way, I don't know how many times I've told my mates not to buy those shit china kits!

Just go buy a core and buy the fittings and line from speedflow or who ever you choose, and make the thing yourself.

Your yum cha kit leaks because the fittings are not matched.

They are not hydraulic fittings.

Inside the fittings should be a 45 degree taper

Male and female respectively to couple together and make a mechanical seal.

Look at your relo plates, there is no taper at all.

The oil pressure just forced the oil thru the threads and leaky leaky.

Buy Australian , buy speedflow, don't winge about the money, because as seen here, you end up doing it right the 2nd time.

Good to see you learnt a valuable lesson and also thanks for a detailed post, maybe no guys will think twice before being Jew bags and wasting there money in china on inferior products that clearly will never ever work.

there was definitely a taper in the yum-cha fittings, but from what i understand now is that the angle of the seats is different... near enough is close enough in China they say.

the cheap fittings also felt cheap... they just seemed lighter & less dense than the Proflow ones. In fact I was afraid they'd crack as I was doing them up.

[Jetwreck]

lolz.

I bought one a while back......sold it to some tard with a gold POS named Sunkist in Vic!

Just an fyi....if your after a good thermo sandwich plate I have a brand new Grex one sitting on my bedside table thats for sale....only issue is it has an R34 adaptor but you should be able to use the one you have just used for you sandwich plate.

[Daleo]

Sooooo; did someone say Haydn's awesome Aussie spec oil cooler group buy?

Sucks that you had a shite experience; at least you had the good sense not to persevere and potentially damage a motor.

[andy65b]

Where is your trans cooler hiding?

[Daleo]

Where is your trans cooler hiding?

At the shop?

[Mr 20Valve]

Sooooo; did someone say Haydn's awesome Aussie spec oil cooler group buy?

hahahahah

No.

[Mr 20Valve]

Where is your trans cooler hiding?

Exactly the same spot above the intercooler next to the oil cooler.

It hadn't been fitted in the pictures

There's also a small power steering cooler wedged in just between the oil cooler & headlight now too.

[66yostagea]

Pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Apologies to Mr 20Valve. LOL

[Daleo]

Pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Apologies to Mr 20Valve. LOL

Maybe; but nothing ventured nothing gained. Someone has to take the risk every now & then.

If no-one had tried K-Sport BB Kits, or BC Coilovers they would've been an unrealised performance bargain.

[Mr 20Valve]

Pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Apologies to Mr 20Valve. LOL

Hence the reason I decided to make a post about it...

I'd prefer no-one else makes a similar mistake.

[pbk1776]

I might have bought the same kit from eBay came from china for my TypeR - exactly same issues

leaks everywhere were I just decided to sell it and but genuine locally lol

[bigkevracer]

Have you had a chance to measure temps yet Hayden?

Considering doing this and trying to work out if the size you've picked is big enough, and if it's not where to fit something bigger

[PN-Mad]

To give you a quick idea - cars that I have logged when hot (ie traffic/idle/city driving - NOT giving it a boot) have logged oil temps around the mid to high 90s.

[bigkevracer]

To give you a quick idea - cars that I have logged when hot (ie traffic/idle/city driving - NOT giving it a boot) have logged oil temps around the mid to high 90s.

Cheers Alex. I take it that's without a cooler?