Oil Coolers - Better than heatercores?
 

The top-performing Serck that BillA tested is an oil cooler. They are generally designed for minimal pressure drop, and often employ internal turbulators. So, cost aside, are oil coolers a better choice than heatercores?

As far as cost goes, Setrab makes a line of high-performance oil coolers, which can be purchased on eBay for about $40-$50 (comparable to the Serck: 11x5x2, 16 plates).

ps. Any ideas on what would be the best way to clean oil out of one of these?

I have had better results with oil cooler but that is my personal experience, as for how to clean them? Do you mean remove oil? Try a degreaser.

I'm running an oil-cooler, very similar to that, and I will hands down go for a properly ventilated heater-core....

the oil coolers such as on the ebay link is very very nice, and very price competitive. They also have a much nicer shape, for (allinonecase) apps, but if sheer brute force is the requirement, a nice 9" heater-core, is pretty damn hard to beat....

JoeMac - What heater cores and oil coolers have you compared (ie. size/design/mfg/etc)?

Rotor - Is yours a 16 plate design? I suppose, by simple extrapolation from Big Momma's results, that a 9" heater core might surpass the Serck and other similar oil coolers in raw heat transfer capacity at a given rate of flow; however, the significantly lower head loss of an oil cooler may result in a net system improvement over the heater core. Or perhaps I'm putting too much faith in flow...

There's more than one type of oil cooler (which as far as I know, are tranny coolers).

The Hayden series have built-in turbulators, which give them an excellent performance, not unlike the Serck.

A straight pipe type cooler will not perform anywhere near as well as those, or a heatercore. Of course this doesn't prevent one from putting in their own turbulators...

Engine oil coolers are not the same as transmission oil coolers. Engine oil coolers are designed to be less restrictive, and generally higher performing. While you can use an engine oil cooler for your transmission oil, the reverse is not necessarily true. The Serck and Setrab are both engine oil coolers.

You mean these? It looks like all their engine oil coolers are pipe coolers with turbulators, like the 5x10 BeCooling unit BillA tested. Hayden's only plate coolers are transmission oil coolers like the "twice blessed" and "miracle midget wonder" of BillA's tests, which don't contain turbulators, afaik.

in a low-flow ,high restrictive system, the best is to opt for a heater-core/oil-coolers with turbulators right?
since there is litle flow, turbulators will not put up much restriction right?

I dug this out of a BMW 520 -86. Its from the ClimatControl I think... Or atleast it was positioned behind the heatercore...

http://w1.500.telia.com/~u50014558/H...20-89-AC_1.JPG

Its a 120mm

http://w1.500.telia.com/~u50014558/H...20-89-AC_3.JPG

BTW... Heres the heatercore:

http://w1.500.telia.com/~u50014558/H...HeaterCore.JPG

satanicoo:
Heater cores, to my knowledge, do not use turbulators. The need for turbulators in greatest in oil cooling applications, where the oil's high viscosity readily results in laminar flow conditions.

With regards to your second question, the presence or absence of turbulators should make little difference at any flow rate, relative to the overall design of the radiator. Flow restriction, analogous to resistance in electrical circuits, is mostly a function of length times the inverse of the cross sectional area. This is, for example, why 1-pass radiators usually have less head loss than 2-pass radiators of equivalent size: the 1-pass radiator has twice as many parallel tubes/plates (more cross sectional area), and the total length of each parallel segment is about half as long (less total length). The overall contribution of turbulators to pressure drop is probably quite small, but that's something only a fluid engineer or radiator designer can answer for sure.

pelle76:
Your first pic is an evaporator from the car's A/C.

pelle76, are those made of copper or alu?
i wonder wich one is best.... probably the heatercore

They are both alu...

Hot Dog! There's actually an engine oil cooler! Either are indicated as having turbulators though.

I really can't remember which one Bill tested... let's search... Got it!, it's BeCooling's 5 x 10 cooler, which was not included in Bill's roundup. It's a Hayden Ultra-cool tranny cooler.

Here's a link to the turbulators in question.

How about this:-

http://www.zerofanzone.co.uk/pictures/jpg/radsmall.jpg

Out of a 1972 JCB, its all brass & copper construction, all older lorries, busses and tractors have rads made this way, alu and the equipment to make rads out of it was expensive back then.

cleanning it up and modding it now as I'll have to use it soon due to moving house :D

Or how about this one?
Beware It's rather LARGE!
Possible Radiator for Water Cooling?:D
ebay auction for this radiator, size mentioned there

I see some mods for it already...
 

knock off those 3/8" reducing barbs and make it a 1/2" connection.

:D

Re: I see some mods for it already...
 

I hope that's for the one that I mentioned, If It is then, I'll let whoever buys It do that. :D

zoom314: Would you make your sig smaller? It gets annoying when its twice as long as your posts.

How's that?

I found this from Brian at Becooling. Its used but it 100% copper tubing and should solve my UV dye disappearing/trapping problem.
AquaCoil.

http://www.chadandjodi.com/watercool/newcoil1.jpg

Will have it in 4 days or so. I have tracking number.

I will be selling my Dtek Brand new Rad for $25 with shroud, etc.
Used dtek rad for 3 days.

Wow, That's some rad, Mine only has six loops, yours looks like It has ten loops in It.:eek:

For me when I bought my heater core it was a price/performance issue. It will be hard to beat what I found. The same heater core as a 2-302 (10 3/4 x 5 5/8 x 2). Anyone in America can get one of these for $19.99+local taxes at your local NAPA dealer. The NAPA part number is 4603056. If they give you a price higher than this tell them that is what is online at their site. (Check it first www.napaonline.com)

I don't think a Serck or similar going for $48+$12 shipping is going to out perform the one above enough to warrant spending 3 times the money. I could just go get a second one and still have money left over.

I have since moved on to using a water chiller (from ebay) that went for less than what some one spent on that serck type rad.

Well maybe I can't beat the price, My MaxXxpert cost Me $30.00, Shipping was Free though.:D

Zoom314
How does your Maxxpert perform?
What are your temps?
Thanks

I didn't mean to imply that I had a working water cooling setup yet, I'm still 2 water blocks and a 12v pump away from that point yet.:cry: