I just called stillen to see if a 300zx TT oil cooler will fit the 350Z and guess what!!!!They have an oil cooler for the 350Z available!!!! the retail was $385.50...anyone interested call Daniel in sales and ask for it..Part#400635...I will be installing it on Friday and will take pictures..

 

That's robbery. How about 100 bucks?

 

Sounds like a good price depending on the size of the radiator for it. Building a good one yourself will probably cost ~$250, so add on the money they gotta make to stay in business, not bad. My big question would be is the bypass thermostatically controlled or is it always bypassing oil, and does it have a pressure switch to prevent blowing out the radiator when driving when the engine oil is still cold.

 

I would assume Stillen designed it with all those features you speak of...Which by the way I have no clue what you said..

 

So based on this, you're telling me that everything Stillen makes works????

... you interested in some swampland? I'll give you a deal if you act soon.

 

Well the sandwich adapter that goes between the engine block and the oil filter should have a bypass switch. Hopefully thermostatically controlled. When the engine oil hits a certain temp, the switch opens routing oil to the oil cooler. Without it, your engine will take a much longer time to warm up in the morning because of the extra oil and the cooler doing its job.

Sometimes you can also get a pressure switch in it so that it will close the bypass to the oil cooler so if the oil pressure gets above XXX PSI it doesn't allow oil to go to the oil cooler. This might be a VW thing only, but most oil coolers are only rated at XXX PSI. Anything above that will cause the oil cooler to crack.

 

Actually NO..I hate Stillen stuff..BUT...I figured I would give it a try since the Nismo one is $1300 and I figured to peice together all the parts my self wasnt worth the extra $$$$..So we shall see how it works I will let you know...But the only problem is I dont have an oil temp guage to compare before and after,but cooler oil cant hurt you..

 

only true on a monsterously sized cooler...not the case on this one.

This is a nice enough piece if the bracket and everything makes it a bolt on, and it has stainless lines, whcih lok nice.

But for $130.00 the B&M does the job well as well......but its a bit more of a custom job

Personally I have not seen oil cooling as even being an issue on these cars yet........

 

What about running 400+hp on a boosted engine??You dont think it will help run cooler???

 

I think it's helpful if that makes any difference.

 

daking350 ,
Please post some pics and all the info you can. I was waiting for n-tech to come out with theirs , but that was last Sept. Their website has never been updated since.

 

This looks like a nice kit and the price is very reasonable. It looks like a 19 row Setrab, which goes for $150. A Setrab cooler is in a whole different league than a B&M cooler. There's a reason why NASCAR's run Setrab coolers. The sandwich and lines would easily be another $150 to replicate. Plus, it looks like the mounting bracket makes it an easy install.

Very nice.

 

I an oil temp gauge shows that it is needed, it makes no difference if its a 100 hp engine or a 1000 hp engine. Oil temp should be slightly hotter than water temp. Also depends on the type of oil being used (not only synthetic vs dino but what kind of synthetic) and the conditions the car is used in. High HP does not always mean an oil cooler is needed, or even beneficial in any way.

How exactly are they in a different league? For a IRL or F1 car quite possibly it makes a difference....for what we all use our cars for everyday, doubtful you or anyone else could tell the difference.

I am not knocking the idea of a cooler at all, but I just don't understand everyone's obsession with feeling that they "have" to get something or making blanket statements about A product sucking or B product being better or necessary, without even doing any research for themselves aside from the manufacturers website...........this is an expensive hobby guys, and as much as I like selling stuff (it puts food on my table!), just becuase its sold does not mean its worth it for you to buy.

If for nothing else, as I said in my first post, if the bracket allows it to bolt onto the car, that is its nicest feature. Does that make it worth another nearly $200 over the B&M (Summit and JEGS are the 2 cheapest places I think for that piece..usually around $109.00 including cooler, adapter, oil filter, though admitedly it uses rubber lines, not braided with Aeroquip fittings, whcih is a nice thing......individual choice I suppose.

 

The reason I'm looking for an oil cooler is that I auto-x and track my Z. I don't ***** foot around, I run the car hard. In the middle of summer I boiled over the PS fluid. I bought the Nismo PS cooler to resolve that problem. Also I have installed the Nismo thermostat.
If I'm running at Road Atlanta, VIR or anywhere else for that matter for a long period of time I do not want my oil breaking down and causing me problems. I would rather be proactive and spend a little now as apposed to reactive and spend alot later.

If you can come up with a better package deal with SS braided lines, Aeroquip fittings and the mounting bracket for less let us know.

 

We are not planning on doing any sort of cooler at this time until we feel our own car needs it. I cetainly can understand the usefulness and maybe necessity for it if the car is tracked frequently - at this point, our car is not, just daily driven.

I guess I'll also ask the obvious question - any pictures of the Stillen one installed? Would be good to see how much air it gets and how it might interact with guys with intercoolers.

 

Well I have a dedicated road race car (a Honda, not my Z) and switching from a B&M cooler to a Setrab cooler showed a 50' drop on my oil temp gauge in the same weather conditions at the same track. That's a different league to me.

Your statement above is like saying how is an Amuse titanium exhaust different from a crush bent exhaust with a flowmaster muffler. Power will probably feel exactly the same seat of the pants, but a dyno will show you the differences.

When you buy high quality high performance parts you have to pay much more for small, incremental gains. But in the case of an oil cooler on a Z that sees track time, I will gladly pay hundreds of dollars more for a cooler that shaves off a few more degrees of heat.

 

Daking350,
Did you get the Stillen Oil cooler ? Give us some pics and a review. Does it have a thermostat ? How easy was it to install ? Were the installation instructions any good ?

 

350z steve - I don't think your comparison between exhausts at all mirrors what I was saying. And IMH is you saw a 50 degree drop in temps between 2 oil coolers it was safe to say that perhaps your B&M was clogged or soemthing to that degree.

As for shaving off heat, I would agree if the heat is even an issue.....I have yet to see it be an issue however on the cars I have driven on the track, or rather, at least on teh tracks I have driven.

The thing is people automatically assume that cooler engine oil is a good thing - not always so. The oil is desinged to work within a range....go out of that range one way or the other and the oil simply does not work as it was desinged to. As I said, oil temp should be just a bit hotter than water temp.

It will be neat to see how the bracket worked out and where it actually locates the cooler on a Z.....especially for those with a front mount, which I wold argue are the setups that need it most.

 

It really was NOT a direct bolt on as the STILLEN sales guy told me... They said its fine with an intercooler,yet the instructions call for placement right where the intercooler goes..There is NO way it fits with the ATI intercooler and I can not see how it fits with the Stillen intercooler..So now I was forced to do a cutom install that I could have done in the first place and probably spent less $$$$$ But Oh well..My loss is your gain and I am always willing to try new things in the quest for knowledge...

So enought RANT..STILLEN STIKES AGAIN Here is the ONLY place I found it to fit on the aluminum bumper...So the Stillen bracket was not needed..

 

Here are the lines going to the cooler..Which I had to cut and re connect cause they were too long Other wise they would kink up...Damn Stillen again!!!
Oh by the way..In the pictures on their site it shows SS braided lines...NOT!!! False advertisement...