That won't cause any heat issues? I know as large as the AE cooler is it probably doesn't get too hot, but there isn't any real direct airflow on the PS cooler anymore?

Mike, any updates on your COBB AP? played with it at all? Dyno tune?

We'll find out, but I don't think so. My old 350Z time attack car had no issues with the same power steering cooler sitting behind our oil cooler, which was also half behind the bumper cover. That car also had big stick 295 wide race tires up front.

Nope, not yet. There is nobody in Vegas who knows the AP so I am going to have to make a trip down to SoCal to get it done. Just haven't had the time lately.

Thx for posting up pic of O/C. I know you are setting up the car for track, but let us know how fast it heats up the oil to proper temps for the DD and during cooler weather conditions.

Mike, any comments about how fast oil temps get up to 180 degrees during normal driving?

RE: Oil cooler getting to temp under normal driving conditions:

Well I won't be able to comment about cold weather anytime soon seeing as we're heading into another Vegas summer, but it took roughly 15 min. on the highway early morning, probably ~60-65 degrees out, just normal cruising speed.

Track Review:

This past weekend I did a one-day event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway road course. The event was fun, but unfortunately some car troubles didn't allow for much track time in the 370Z. Basically after my 2nd session, the car would not start at all. The starter would just wind up but it wasn't engaging. Upon further inspection, one of the starter mounting bolts was gone, the other was loose, and the starter was dis-engaged. Luckily Paladin Advanced Automotive here in Vegas has kick a** customer service and sent one of their techs out to the track with a bolt and fixed it for me! Unfortunately, I only had one more session after that to go back out before day's end. Here's a quick review of some of the new parts and key points on the car...

AE Performance Oil Cooler - WAY better than anything else I have seen for this car. Ambient temp was around 85 degrees, which means track surface temps were probably around 100 degrees. The track was basically made up of straights & hairpins meaning there wasn't a whole lot of air flow going to the oil cooler as the speeds were relatively low and to add to that, I was in lap traffic pretty much the whole time. Pretty bad conditions as far as keeping temps down. For the first two sessions in the morning I had no issues with oil temp whatsoever, it peaked around 245 after about 15-20 minutes of tracking. The third session at the end of the day, around 4pm when air temp was at its hottest, I did get to around 260 degrees after about 20 minutes, again in tons of lap traffic. My consensus is that 95% of the time this oil cooler will take care of any oil temp issues, and what this oil cooler doesn't take care of, none will.

NST Pulley Kit + Fidanza Flywheel - On a track with so many slow corners it was really helpful to have the quicker acceleration that these parts gave the car.

Brakes - For the first time, I finally experienced the "ice mode" that everyone has been talking about. Definitely didn't like it. This track is also harder on brakes than any other track I have taken the car too.

Nitto NT05 Tires - Although they have plenty of tread left, they definitely are nowhere near as fast as they are when they're new. I have had this particular set on the car since September 2009 and this was my 7th track day on them and they feel like crap if I am being brutally honest. They are best when they are brand new, within the first 2-3 heat cycles.

Glad your happy with it Mike!

See you this weekend!


:tup:

Sucks about the starter, at least it didn't fall off completely while you were on track. That would have really sucked!

About the only thing I could see to make the AE cooler better in terms of cooling would be larger lines. This core has roughly the same surface area as the 34 row Nismo cooler but it has half the pressure drop due to having shorter rows. This would dictate that oil has the capacity to flow through the cooler much faster but I think the -8 lines (0.44" ID) are restricting the flow rate slightly. -10 (.565") or -12 (.690") would potentially give higher flow rates and perhaps better cooling when things get extreme as they have twice the internal volume allowing more oil to flow assuming no other restrictions.

I think for a kit that is produced for the mass market they hit it dead on. Like I said, for 95% of the drivers, tracks, seasons, etc. it would be plenty, while still letting the oil warm up enough for normal street driving. Now bigger lines and a thermostatic sandwich plate might be the ultimate setup, but then people will complain even more about price. :)

Let the mass market buy the Stillen kit. Build this one for racing!

LOL, Thats mostly the approach we take on all of our products. Unfortunately it gets $$ for the masses.

Most of our products are geared toward, Porsche, BMW, GTR customers so we try to keep the same quality across the map yet keep it as $$ conscious as possible for our 1k customers to our 50k customers.

On our car we ran larger lines, but we had a bit too much pressure drop, and it took much longer for the car to heat up on the street. Also overall pressure was a bit too low for our comfort w/ the stock oil pump. The -8's corrected this issue without much sacrifice in high temp cooling.

It's the same set-up we run our our Porsche cup cars.

Thanks for the info Paul. It's nice to know the reasoning behind the decision.

I run -10 on my smaller cooler, but I guess that's the tradeoff. Thanks for the 'splainin Paul.

Mike, Paul, Chris thx for the info on the oil cooler.