….And where back! Sorry about the longer than expected delay in updating this blog. There where some unforeseen back orders and the usual holiday slow down. We are now prepping for the Honda Challenge season. The Goal this year is to place in a few events this year, and see where our project car needs improvement.
One thing that I have known for some time is that the car needed a oil cooler. The LS model Integra does not come with any cooler at all. The GSR model does have a cooler, but it is a water to oil one, and is not very efficient on the track. The oil Temperature at the last track day was over 270 degrees, not good for bearings and motor life. I purchased a 19 row Earls TEMP A CURE cooler, with hopes to cool the oil down to the 220 degree mark.
The second part of the cooling system would be a Mocal thermostat. This item will only open the lines to the cooler once the temperature of the oil reaches 180 degrees. This will help the oil get up to temp on the cold mornings in Vegas on the way to the track.
The thermostat is stacked on top of the spacer installed to get the readings for the oil pressure and temperature. The is no room in the engine bay for a remote oil filter so we will see how this works at our next track day.
The lines are routed up and over the transmission on the passenger side. I wanted to avoid the moving belts on the drives side, and this placed the oil cooler away from the power steering cooler in the front of the car.
The lines are routed through a space between the radiator and the front T bar. I’m not sure how this will work when the time comes to upgrade to a larger radiator, but it fits now.
I added some vinyl tubing to make sure that the hoses don’t burst from wearing on the frame.
The hoses also got some coverings to address the wear at the point where it contacts the radiator. If I wasn’t keeping the air conditioning or power steering there are a lot of better ways to place the hoses, But I tried many ways over a few weeks and this was the best way.
The routing also had to go under the Ice box air intake. If the car used a long ram intake I don’t think this is necessary.
Here is a picture of the reason for the long delay on this post. The bracket for the cooler is a new item, I saw it at SEMA in November and had to have it. The product was so new it was back ordered til the first week in February. I tried to make my own bracket, but had trouble fabricating the dampeners to mount on the cooler. The kit came with the rubber bushings and fit the cooler perfect.
Here is the cooler mounted in the front on the passenger side. I used double sided tape to secure the top part of the bracket and screws to secure the bottom.
Here is what the cooler looks like with the bumper back on. I will have to fabricate some ducts to make sure the air doesn’t just pass around the cooler.
If you know Integra engine bays you might have caught one problem with the routing of the oil lines. The place where they exit the engine bay, and snake through to the front of the car is where the over flow tank for the radiator is. This posed another problem that was solved with some fabrication. The only overflow tank i could find that was small enough to fit where the stock one went was this Canton one.
I fabricated a bracket to rivet the tank”s holder to. The bracket is made out of sheet metal, and bent to strengthen it.
The tank bracket is secured using an existing bolt for the ABS unit, the other stabilizer is secure with a bolt through an existing hole in the frame. I just needed to get a longer silicone hose for a connection to the radiator. I will paint this black after it has been tested at the track.
This wasn’t the only project that was worked on so stay tuned for more updates.