Replacing and Relocating the Oil Cooler on a '90 Laser

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Replacing and Relocating the Oil Cooler on a '90 Laser




This was done on a '90 Laser with the original air cooled, oil cooler. The idea is to remove all non-essential items from the radiator air intake area. The result should be more air and cooler air getting to the radiator and more cooling for the oil via a larger cooler. The entire original cooler with lines were removed from in front of the radiator and detached at the oil filter housing.
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Here is what we started with. A 6” x 10” x 2" Setrab oil cooler off E-Bay the cost was minimal for this unit. \
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The cooler was attached to the body with 1 x 1/8” aluminum stock. These attachments were made to the faring as shown here ….
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… and also on the bottom of the cooler to the faring as shown here. The tapped hole already existed on the car panel. The upper portion of the cooler on the inner side is attached to bottom of the bumper where there was an existing tapped hole.
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An oil cooler duct was purchased from E-Bay, again at a modest price. Adding a duct that takes into account the size of the bumper cover opening vs. the actual size of the cooler insures that all the air is directed thru the cooler and not around it.
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The double opening of the duct had to be fitted to the opening size of the bumper cover as shown in the picture.

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You’ll have to trim the inner portion of the opening of the bumper cover to fit tightly against the duct.
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Now it comes to plumbing the cooler back to the engine. I purchased 2 ea. –12 90 deg. Fittings as shown here.__________________________________________________ ________________________

Also a pair of –16>-12 reducers for the cooler because the one I purchased was set up for –16 lines and fittings. These reducers are shown above.
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-12 AN hose was purchased again off E-bay at a much reduced price and attached to the 90 deg. Fittings. The hole the lines are running thru existed but had to be enlarged and elongated. Protection was provided by splitting a hose on one side and applying to sharp edges and is partly completed in the picture above to show the differences.
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Lines leaving the front portion of the faring and exiting to the rear.
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Lines coming around to the oil filter housing.
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Attachment of the lines to the oil filter housing on this setup, required a pair of –12 straight fittings and a pair of adapters that were –12 > 16mm 1.5 thread. The -12 > 16mm x 1.5 adapters were hard to find and weren’t cheap, as a matter fact, dang expensive, $40.00 for the pair and were found at: http://www.batinc.net/files/metric.pdf. So you may want to stick with smaller lines such as –10 or smaller which are sufficient and maybe save some of this expense. Also I've read that some 1G A engines use different size fittings at the oil filter housing, so be sure to check them for correct size.
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There you have it. Running cooler already…..
As you can see in the picture, the cooler below the bumper is of course the engine oil cooler we just talked about. The duct above it is the next step to removing unnecessary items out from in front of the radiator area. It is for a power steering cooler/duct and removes another heat producer from in front of the radiator. As soon as I can put it together I'll put it up also.