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[J. Fast]

How exactly would you go about putting an oil cooler on a manual transaxle?

First you would need a pump to circulate it. Then you would need to think about using thinner than gear oil oil in it as it would be tough to pump/circulate thick gear oil as apposed to ATF which is very thin.

-Chris

I have seen three manual Getrag gearboxes with cooler additions. Two have been done by Jack in the springs. The first one he basically he took an AWD trans, did a FWD conversion and used the rear output gearset to drive pump gears similar to oil pump gears.

On the second one he did the same thing but incorporated the powersteering pump and res, and added an inline 19 row cooler.

The last one, another guy here in Colorado deleted the AC and cleaned out the plumbing system with brake cleaner. He braised on AN adapter fittings and added some flared solid tubing lines and modified a circ pump and bracket to circulate trans fluid from the old ac pully location.

[J. Fast]

He came up with this design when we raced his Jacks Transmission Team last fall. It was pretty ingenious and worked really really well.

In order to make the trans reliable in a race where the car will be at WOT for hours at a time, I had to design and build an internal oil pump for the trans so oil could be moved to a cooler to keep temps down and to add more oil to more sensitive places. We couldn't run an electric pump as that would make the car worth more than the rules would allow, so we had to make our own internal unit. I took an old 3S oil pump and cut it up to fit the center diff cap so the pump would turn when the car was in motion. To keep pressure down, but oil flowing, I made the inlet of the pump the same diameter as the outlet. The pump worked flawlessly the first time around and did it's job all the way though the entire race without an issue. Ran a fitting from the pump to the case to go out to the oil cooler. The return came in right at the 3-4 gear assembly to splash more oil in that sensitive area known to have issues. This was an AWD trans I converted to use in a FWD car.

[dpartinvr4]

[UTRacerX9]

A manual transmission cooler? LOL I think it's a great idea. I don't run my car at extremely high speeds anymore, but if I did, I'd want one.

[Ninja Performance]

Wow and Wow, that is some trick shit for an oil cooler on an MTX. Crazy shit. I don't' see it necessary and odd to go from nice thick oil to thinner and a pump. But maybe it gets hotter than I thought. Definitly very cool design and follow through.

-Chris

[J. Fast]

Enduro and road race is a whole different animal. There are lots of design considerations that must be studied in order to 'push a car all-out for hours upon hours'.

I'm not sure if this has been discussed much in our platform being that there are really only a handful of road racers, most of which are time trial racers, but the 3/S and DSM platforms are notorious for running super hot on road course. I have been to the track countless times wether it’s to crew for members of my team or race my own vehicle. After about an hour or so going 100% in the 400hp range in a DSM and 500hp range in a 3/S these cars begin boiling over the trans, the T-case, brake fluid, and power steering. Every breather and rubber line in the system will inevitably leak, period. Fluids boiling over and leaking all over the place... it's a freaking mess. You have to wear damn elbow high nomex gloves just to grab the dipstick and open any of the accy fluid caps since they're all well over 250F.

Overflow extension breathers and surge tanks aid in extending the time frame, in a time attack or 30min enduro type of scenario, but will only get you so far. You have to relocate the fill reservoirs for one, and add a cooler or some sort of directional duct cooling to every system, literally. Every one of those critical components is right over the damn manifolds or heat source in the engine bay. For example, the clutch hydraulic lines, brake lines, aws lines, and brake proportioning valves for our cars sit right on top of the rear manifold and are mere inches or two away from the rear turbo. After a few hours regardless of BBK or not... prepare to go farming because unless you relocate the proportioning valve you will learn to drive in the weeds!

In about an hour or so these cars begin to experience brake fade from brake fluid boil over. Just the same you will also begin to clip gears in the gearbox because the clutch hydraulics will start to boil and the slave rod will start to do it's own thing when you melt the rubber dust boot protecting the pushrod that modulates the shift fork (the melted rubber will start to get sticky and pulsate when it gets stuck). You literally have to go with an internal HTOB and use the bell housing cover for a heat shield.

The power steering and clutch hydraulics are trapped in a heat collection area under the hood, and the Trans and T-Case are sandwiched between the turbos and the exhaust hence you have to shield them and cool them and also get all that damn heat out of there. Jacks fix is actually quite revolutionary as it's a purely mechanical gear drive system, no electrical or spring loaded points of failure. The most interesting thing about it is, it also serves a recirc on the power steering and you can relocate the fill res wherever you would like, preferably to the passenger side original battery mounting location.

He killed a lot of birds with this one fix. He opened up more weight reduction by dropping the RWD drive train components. Second, he cooled down the gearbox. Third, he cooled down the power steering as he also circ’d the trans fluid thru the power steering system with this mod. Lastly, he shaved another 200lbs off his car in dead weight and rotational weight as well.

I think the biggest thing to take from this... I've reached a point we're I'm actually seeing myself and friends taking away from what these cars were designed for. They were not built to be race cars and any one who argues otherwise is a fool who's certainly spent a fortune and probably blown a few up. These cars were built for touring and enjoyment on the streets. Buying an AWD car to make it a 2wd car is simply foolish. Since my friends and I can't rationalize with one another and seem to listen to the dumb cricket on our opposite shoulders we settle for hard lessons and sinking craploads of money which we'll probably never recoup. That is the enthusiast / hobby racer way, and yes it's fun!

[MR2]

Brilliant post. I'm planning on swapping the PS cooler line for a full core, shall I create a thread to discuss this

[dpartinvr4]

got her out of hiding

[IPD]

got her out of hiding

i see a 97-98 bumper with a 1 piece lip, not a novara v2. ??? did you use a 99 lip or something?

[UTRacerX9]

got her out of hiding

That looks great, I would have painted the lip the same color as the bumper though. That's about what I want my bumper to look like.