I did a bunch of work on the oil system this weekend. After a lot of talking with a number of people, I decided to take a stepwise approach. When I got the car back from Yimisport, the dry sump was plumbed as follows: 2 Scavenge lines to the discharge of the pump to the bottom of the Spintric. From the Spintric, the liquid exit went to the rear Setrab 16X6 oil cooler mounted in the back of the car. This unit has two Spal fans rated at 342cfm and thermostatically controlled at 180F. The exit of the cooler went to the oil tank. Remember, I am using a gravity feed to the OEM oil pump in the car. Pressure is rock steady, always. In this configuration, I got to 240F oil temp my last session at about 7/10 driving with an 85F ambient air temp.

I talked to John at Aviaid, who built the pump. Each of the two scavenge elements is rated for 16gpm. The combined discharge can go as high as 275psi, if restricted (will not be possible with my set up). John said that with a scavenge system, 80% of what is pumped can be air. I then talked to Marv Beals at Setrab. He said that the oil cooler would not have an issue with the air and they did not get air bound like a pressurized radiator system. He suggested trying the spintric after cooler. He also said it did not matter which side of the cooler was supply or return

So today, I re-piped everything. Now the two scavenge pumps combine and discharge to the inlet of the Setrab oil cooler on the side with the thermostat. From the discharge side of the cooler, the oil/air goes to the inlet of the spintric. Both the liquid line and the air line from the spintric go to the tank.

I ran the car on the trailer and I can say that it appears to take longer for the oil to heat and I was not able to get it as hot as I did before I made the change (both tests run on the trailer). Today, the fans came on and were doing a great job of removing heat from the oil. Obviously, I won't know the full score until I get back to the track, but I don't see how it will hurt having 100% of the oil (with some air) go through the cooler. My working theory at this point is that the spintric may have been bypassing a significant amount of oil to the tank through the air line and effectively bypassing the cooler. I know that the cooler was hot before, but not how efficiently it was running. So some oil was getting to the cooler. Now, everything is going to the cooler.

If this new set up does not provide adequate cooling, it will be a simple matter to add back in the front coolers. The are clean, dry, plugged and lashed down pending the next step.

I also built my first braided AN 12 line today. A hot rod friend of mine told me about a fitting that is made by Koul Tools. You clamp the nut in it and twist in the braided line. Practically magic. No stuck fingers. No hassles. They sell kits with all the different sizes. Awesome.