External oil cooler??

[volcomsnow245]

What is the difference in an external oil cooler? I was looking into one but dont know if its necessary.

 

[thomcasey]

You have a 92, so you should have the water-cooled oil cooler. It should work fine. To have an external, you will need to replace the OFH to allow for it. I have yet to see a difference between the external and water coolers. Oil looked the same at each oil change

 

[19Eclipse90]

External oil cooler is another name for an air oil cooler. The oil filter housing has lines connected to a heat exchanger away from the housing to allow air to pass through and cool the oil, similar to radiators and intercoolers. A water-cooled air cooler does the same thing but uses the engine coolant running through an add-on to the oil filter housing to cool the oil.

The major perk to an external cooler used by the ordinary driver is that you eliminate the possibility of your cooler cracking/breaking and mixing coolant and oil. If you actually need one depends on what you plan to use the car for. It has the potential to cool much better than a water-cooled cooler, but that varies with the temperature of the air passing over/through it. A water-cooled oil cooler will be more consistent in cooling the oil but, at times, it may be higher than the external oil cooler.

On the whole, oil coolers in general are recommended, not required. Obviously if you are auto-crossing a lot, doing road racing, or pulling consecutive passes on the drag strip, you want an oil cooler.

 

[volcomsnow245]

Great answers thank you very much. I'm going to stick with the stock one for now but when I rebuild my bottom end I'm going to go external. My bad snowboarder totally didn't proof read but I fixed it.