Oil Cooler Air Box

[Pezhead]

Hey folks. I thought I'd post my work on my Oil Cooler installation. I decided a few months back that I'm not going to track my GTR until I have an oil cooler. I ended up getting a nice kit from UAS and up-sized the cooler to a 15 row. For anyone planning on doing this to their R33, the 15 row is the biggest that will fit in this area. I nearly took it back to downsize as it took me a while to figure out how it would fit.

I ended up placing mine right under the air intake behind the bumper as that was the only free space I have in my line. The BOV on the other side got in the way and I don't really want to move those. They're nicely hidden from sight

As in all projects it all took a lot of time. Measuring and planning made a lot of difference. But I'm really glad it did the planning as it has turned out really nicely. Making sure all the oil lines and box placement was going to work out was a little tricky. Making sure everything tucks up inside the mud guard without hardly any clearance was tricky. All up it took me 3 full weekends and a couple of weeknights. But I did get distracted along the way to do some custom fab and engine bay detailing.

Here is the build of the airbox (note that I had to get the angle of the airgap to 15 degrees as that is how I did the trig when I layed out the design):

I decided I wanted to reinforce the oil hose end so with some angle stock. Then I got a bit carried away with the mill work. I'm a backyard machinist so I have a desktop mill in the shop.

Mounting into the car looks like this:

I decided I didn't want the hot air to go directly into the engine bay intake so I built a full enclosure/top lid for the box.

You can't see it too well in the pictures but the lid is angled so there is a large slot at the top that vents out the mud guard. I also just got too tired and didn't take pictures of the air ducting. I built a scoop that pulls all the air from the turn signal duct directly into the bottom end of the air box. That way it forces air through the cooler and out the mud guard. I also slit the mud guard but heated the plastic to an angle so that any water/mud flung into the hole will drain back to the outside of the guard rather than get flung inside. Them I put some mesh across the hole to keep out debris.

Outside of the machine work, the box build is something that anyone can do. It just took some tin snips, pop rivets and some planning.

Happy building folks!

[RusH_]

very impressive!

[HKS_R34]

Bit restrictive aint it? Did you enclose this for legal purpose's? As in qld it is not needed.

[Pezhead]

Mainly I didn't want the hot air going into the engine compartment as directly above the Oil Cooler are my Pod filters. I plan to build a CAI next so would be pointless to just fill it with hot air from this area.

It is really hard to see in the photos but I've got about 40mm of air gap out the back all the way across. I also opened the bottom up a lot for the air intake from the turn signal duct. That area is recessed and will draw in a lot of air and it is forced out the back. It pretty much only gets a work out at the track and I figure that at 100+ k's it will get plenty of flow.

Thanks guys.

Edited February 25, 2008 by Pezhead

[N1GTR]

Holy crap!

[typevu]

Nice work!

[Omurru]

Nice setup, does seem like alot of effort although I do see where your coming from. I just put the same cooler in the same place in my car but mounted a little differently, will round up the pics I took of it. I have the same concern about the hot air from the cooler going up to the pods. I was going to seal up that hole and make up a box that uses the stock intake scoop.