Greetings
again,
In the previous post, I
labeled the ports on my radiator, and now I'm confusing myself
:-)
When I was talking to
Bruce about my oil temp issues, he suggested that I run the (currently
plugged) heater output into the radiator inlet to produce some more coolant
flow through the radiator. This would be in an effort to increase the
efficiency of the oil/water heat exchangers when the thermostat is closed, and
there's little water flow. If I prove that I need to lower my temps,
I'll try this. Certainly, water will actually flow from the heater port to the
radiator inlet tank, because Bruce said Mazda used to do this with the
1st gen oil/water heat exchangers.
Since water will flow
from the engine to the radiator inlet tank, why do they return the heater
itself to the radiator outlet side. This is also true for the AST, and
turbo as far as I can tell. I certainly plumbed my AST and turbo
returns back to the radiator outlet tank, so in effect, they bypass the
radiator. The volume of water is small, so it's probably not a big deal,
but it just seems odd that they wouldn't return all the water to the same
place. I initially thought that maybe they made an exception for the
oil/water heat exchanger return, since it would be picking up heat, and they'd
want to pass that through the radiator. Of course you'd think the
same would be true of the turbo water
return.
I'm not sure there's
really a question here, but if it happens to make sense to anyone, let me
know.
As for the oil temp saga,
I should have an oil temp reading into the engine by this weekend.
Thanks,
Rusty (waiting for
oil temp sensor supplies)
Rusty, I can't concieve
of a situation where you would need more oil cooling when the thermostat has
not even opened yet.
Your potential problem is
simply not having enough coefficient of thermal coupling between oil and
water. If you don't, none of the proposed changes will work.
Another factor: If the thermostat is throttling the water flow through
the rad due to too much water cooling, the water at the cold end of the rad is
*really* cool. The oil cooler at that end will provide all the cooling
the oil could ask for IF there is sufficient thermal transfer
capability.
Just my opinion but the
proposed plumbing changes would be a waste of precious
time.
Tracy