Monty

I ordered new engine, tranny, and p/s coolers and would like to see some good ideas of how and where to mount them for easy access and straightforward plumbing. I ordered a pair of 3"x12" core HD oil coolers for the engines, one has a 4" core p/s cooler added onto it,; and I ordered a pair of 2"x12" core oil coolers for the tranny's. I also ordered oil thermostats for the engine oil coolers.

I'm planning on dropping my new 540's in this weekend, so I need to decide where I'm gonna mount the coolers soon, especially if they'll be mounted under the engines. I'd prefer to not mount them under the engines though.

Here's what my bare engine compartment/bilge looks like.

Monty

Here's what I've got to deal with on the outer stringers...not much room. I'm leaning towads mounting the coolers behind the cylinder heads, above the tranny's.

marinetrans

Usually we mount the engine oil cooler right above the bell housing horizonally. We use 90 degree 1 1/4 brass fittings to pipe up the water. Hardin marine makes billet brackets to hold the cooler you will just make a bracket to mount the brackets and cooler to the block or bell housing. Then use aeroquip high performance fittings to pipe up the oil -10 or -12 sizes. Now if the motor has to come out again it wont make a oily mess taking everything apart and off the stringers.

p4-33

Hi Monty,

I fabbed some brackets out of 3/16" plate stock and attached my coolers under my trannies. This was the most direct route for my raw water lines, and keeps them out of the way in the engine compartment. They were pretty easy to shape with a torch and a vise.

Keep in mind that oil coolers in general are heavy. They are not only a hefty piece of steel (or copper/bronze), they are also full of water and oil. So you'll need to mount them with something solid that will hold up to the rigors of an offshore pounding. This was my primary reason for choosing the trannies as a mounting location.

Nice work, so far!

Brian

p4-33

Another pic

p4-33

Other side

p4-33

Original cooler (center) and beefier one. Also, before and after brackets.

Reed Jensen

Sanitary... very sanitary... good job!

waterbum

Are the coolers that are in bell housings large enough to cool an engine and a transmission? My boat had 3 external coolers for each engine and the builder removed all of them and replaced them with bell housing coolers. He said the coolers I had would not let the engines get warm enough. He did add a small power steering cooler.

Boat went from large blower motors to 540 NA motors if that makes a difference in the cooling requirements.

I still have the coolers, so I could put some/all of them back on if needed.

Thanks.

p4-33

I picked up my coolers and misc hardware from Randy at Cobra Power. He tried to sell me bellhousings with coolers, but I went with the external ones strictly for money reasons. The bellhousing setup would have tripled my costs. IMHO, the bellhousing cooler solution is the cleanest one, but I have no experience with how well it cools.

Randy has been building big power for quite a while, and I have to believe he wouldn't try to sell me something that wasn't adequate.

How warm is "not warm enough?" My motors run 230-240 oil temps at WOT during a 45-min race. They are HP500 carb motors. Does your builder suspect you'll get cooler temps than these? Just curious, as my thinking is cooler is better with oil.

Good luck,
Brian