Really external oil coolers used in racing?

[HoTWire]

Hello, a bit of a debate has sprung up on the Retro Rides forum about externally mounted oil coolers on competition cars.

In the 70's the Japanese touring cars seem to allow external oil coolers, as seen here on the Nissan KPGC10 GTR :


We also found this Opel running one (although arguably it has recently lost its front air dam)



It seems an odd thing given that an ill places stone could result in you having to retire due to loss of oil, thats before the rest of the field had your guts for garters for spreading oil all over the track...

So.. were there any other cars running this kind of oil cooler arrangement in the 70's, any idea of their failure rate?

[Eddy V]

There were quite a lot of Germans running external coolers in the 70's. I did see many BMW 1602 and 2002 equipped with them when they came to Zolder in those days. Some Escorts and NSU TT's as well.
Not that many had problems, bar the ones going off. Hardly no one fell of because of running into another car. Touring car or contact sport wasn't invented yet in those days.

But by the end of the 70's all the coolers went internal.

[HoTWire]

Thank you for that, found some more cars now, including a lot of minis.

We were wondering when they stopped being used and why? External sharp edges not desirable/against rules? As they just seemed to suddenly stop being evident in touring cars.

[markjtaylor]

Another reason for now mounting coolers internal since the 60's/70's, may be slicks! Bet that initially sounds really stupid? Even if not using slicks in your own races, if others using the circuit are, you get loads of bits of hard rubber all over the circuit. This gets picked uop and flicked about, an external coiler without some formidable mesh protection would be very vulnerable. I have a hole in my windscreen and one light lens from a recent race at Mallory for this reason, these bits of rubber are like bullits.

[Mike Bell]

For saloons running to App J the Gp2 rules for 1971 allowed the fitting of an oil cooler exterior to the coachwork but "only below the horizontal plane passing through the centre of the wheel hubs". It was not allowed to fit it an "aerodynamical enveloping structure". So I guess they would have hung off the front.

In 1975 the FIA added "The oil cooler must not constitute a protuberance outside the general car perimiter, seen from above". This continued until the finish of Gp2. I guess this is when they started getting 'built in' generally.

Certainly with slicks the possibility of damage was/is high- my car is in the paint shop now having the front end gravel rash attended to....

[BigWig]

Hotwire, take a look here: http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=116630

The oil cooler on page one is actually plumbed into the cooling system, but page two, the yellow mk1, has two slung out of the front, one for oil, one for coolant. Even though both were really exposed, neither picked up any damage. Page three shows a picture of the red mk1, and that's how it will run in 2010. Albeit in speed events this time, not circuit racing!

[andy robinson]

80's group b rally cars had intercoolers & oil coolers @ the back of roof/bootlid

[chunterer]

I think the TWR Group A XJS had something controversial like this on the '83 model. However this was under the rear of the car so might not have been an oil cooling device?

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by chunterer

I think the TWR Group A XJS had something controversial like this on the '83 model. However this was under the rear of the car so might not have been an oil cooling device?

Could have been a diff oil cooler.

[Gerry Taylor]

As can be seen on many of the photographs of Special Saloons of my era, most of us ran external coolers, usually grill mounted. There was one exciting Sunday when an over officious scrutineer banned me from taking part in a race for the following reason: "The external oil cooler extended beyond the silouette of the car". Shock Horror!
The outcome was, that all the drivers of the saloons, stood as one, and said "If Gerry is banned...wer'e all banned" ( a case of I am Spartacus). They went to the Clerk Of The Course, and told him that this was just a case of an over jealous official, and are we all going home, or what? I was reinstated, and the races went ahead.