well i cant really afford aluminized piping right now and i dont like the idea of using radiator hoses. so what about pvc pipe for intercooler piping. so far i can think of any way that it would it hurt. the make mandrel bends, it holds pressure, and its paintable. has anybody ever done it?

i also have access to an radiator out of a automatic transmission 420a. i was thinking of using it to flow my oil through before it gets to the turbo. Is there anything wrong with doing that? im pretty sure i can get some -4 fittings for it. and make some flared lines to run it an out.

PVC piping would work, and it's been done before... It's ghetto as hell, but it works.

That would be the biggest oil cooler in the world. Not only that, but it probably wouldn't fit with the turbo in there. Hell, it probably wouldn't fit if you were n/a, lol.

Originally posted by jayden1
well i cant really afford aluminized piping right now and i dont like the idea of using radiator hoses. so what about pvc pipe for intercooler piping. so far i can think of any way that it would it hurt. the make mandrel bends, it holds pressure, and its paintable. has anybody ever done it?

Please do not go this route...its embarassing to us, and more so to you and your car. First off, you cant afford "aluminumized pipe" or "ALUMINUM PIPE"? Because there is a big ass difference in cost between the two. You really need to pony up the pocket change for aluminumIZED pipe, and do it that way.
goto your local muffler shop and ask about thier scraps. i did my entire 3" downpipe and test pipe for $30.00.. (all mandrel scraps from other jobs!)

i meant aluminized piping. and the radiator is the same size as manual transmission. it just has fittings on it for transmission fluid to flow through. it would replace my raditor all together.

30bucks is cheap man everywhere i go they say they have to bend it and it was in the 250 dollar range.

PVC plastic?

Plastic melts at high temperatures....I wouldn't be comfortable with it. Although, try Electrical conduit. It is piping used to run wires through, however it does come in a good 2.25" pipe, perfect for IC piping - mandrel too. Its at lowes.

Do not use pvc plastic. a local 4g63 guy made an intake for the turbo and the recirc of the bov combined with underhood temp caused it to melt and pieces flow into his turbo doing a lot of damage. it sounds extreme but i saw the picts with my own eyes, couldnt believe the amount of heat.

Terry

Originally posted by jayden1
30bucks is cheap man everywhere i go they say they have to bend it and it was in the 250 dollar range.

30 bucks is for the scrap! They sell pre-done mandrel bent exhaust piping for specific cars and trucks that you can get cheaply. look into it a bit more...granted to do it this way you have to be able to weld, or know someone who can.
so if you cant weld or dont have that resource then...

theres no advantage to doing things THAT cheaply, because its only a matter of time before it fails.

the problem you will find with that PVC crap is that they are only straights, 45's, and 90's. you will have EXTREME difficulty trying to run all you intercooler piping through all the tight spaces with only those at your disposal.
Plus what Star said...

plus when pvc heats up it releases harmful fumes

Originally posted by donnyb373
plus when pvc heats up it releases harmful fumes

Harmful to what, the engine? I don't think that a 2500 degree combustion chamber will worry about any of the products of the pyrolysis of a few square feet of PVC.

The products are mostly hydrocarbons. Sure, if you heat, until smoke develops, a few PVC pipes in a closed room, the fumes could kill you. In an engine bay with a lot of inherent airflow, though, you would definately be safe. Specifically, the most common product of the pyrolysis of PVC is chlorobenzene, which isn't all that bad:

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts131.html

I don't know what you guys are so worried about, honestly. It's not like you're burning it. Furthermore, fumes aren't created until smoke is given off...

You seem pretty bent on using PVC, go for it if you want, but I bet you'll end up replacing it.

Anyway, I'm more interested in your oil cooler question. I've been pondering doing the same thing myself. I think it could work, I've even read some archived threads on here of people attempting it, but I've never heard of any results. Anything you can do to cool down your oil is a good thing. I've had a lot of oil pressure problems since rebuilding and going turbo, so if it works hit me up and let me know. It is interesting to me that every turbo charged car I've researched from the factory comes with a oil cooler, but yet all of us who turbo charge seem to overlook that. I'm don't claim to know much about thermodynamics, but their must be something to them if they are coming from the factory that way.

Use abs, its more heat resistant. or you could check out this stuff I saw at a honda forum http://www.homemadeturbo.com/forum/index.php?topic=45073.0

dont know how well that'll work though.

yeah im not going to use the pvc, im afraid itll melt to. im gonna look into the scrap bends a little bit more. yeah i think that running the oil into the radiator would be helpful, im more concerned with how much can it cool? or would it be to far to travel for the turbo to be oiled properly?

A few things to keep in mind is that oil is designed to be run with in a cetain temp range for proper lubrication, to hot is bad to cold is bad. Look into that more, theres a reason why oil coolers are a lot smaller than radiators. Also, keep in mind again the difficulty of getting oil into the radiator and filled, the extra volume in the closed loop system and your oil changes. you would still have all that old oil in your "radiator", priming it with new, clean oil would be a bitch if not impossible, and the pan can only hold a cetain amount of oil. Also the extra pressure excerted on the system to push all that oil through a 4AN inlet and outlet, could be detrimental to your oil pump and make it fail sooner than normal.

ok i understand, does anybody know how much tranny fluid and automatic transmission raditor will hold or what section of the radiator does it flow through?

Ok, first of, he is just talking about using an automatic radiator to utilize the area of the raditor for not tranny fluid, but engine oil.

Second. When I did my 5 speed swap I noticed that even the manual cars seem to have the same plumbing inside the radiator. Might want to check and make sure. Im pretty sure they only made one radiator for the simple fact of saving production cost through tooling.

my manual radiator didnt come with the trans cooler hookups. but my dads auto talon did. ( so i switched them ha) i would stay away from pvc . i tried it on my first homemade setup and after about a week everywhere i had a coupler with clamps the pipe shrunk down to about 1 3/4" in size . from a 2 1/4" piece. heat was killing it slowly . i just used metal exhaust bends from advanced auto. and some cheap ebay intakes.

pick up "maximum boost" by corky bell if you havn't already, theres a section about oil coolers in there, tim's right, yes hot is bad, and cold is bad because it's not operating at the proper viscosity causing drag, and the oil temperature being below the minimum 150*F will hurt an engine just as much as synthetic oil exceeding the maximum 270*. Put in an oil temperature gauge first and see what it's reading, if its not too hot, then don't worry about an oil cooler, but i definately think that a radiator for an oil cooler is overkill.

Originally posted by BlackMagic
then don't worry about an oil cooler, but i definately think that a radiator for an oil cooler is overkill.

curtis, he's not talking about using the entire radiator for cooling the oil. He's not even talking about installing a 2nd radiator. I was talking to him the other day, he said something about the a/t radiator having an area that was specifically designed to cool trans fluid. He wanted to use that smaller area designed for trans fluid to cool the oil. then use the rest of the radiator as designed. I think it's a pretty cool idea. If it is efficient and effective is another story. I don't see the oil cooling below 150* running thru something as small as a transcooler. Get an oil temperature gauge, run it stock, get the readings then run the cooler and see what kind of results you get.

totaleclipse97 is correct in what he's saying about the trans radiator, which is what I was saying I thought of as well. I just haven't tried it or know anyone who has and can speak authoritatively about it.

Just to add more confusion, I did a search on here one night a few weeks ago and found an archived thread about someone using an oil cooler on the oil filter assembly and then using a shorter filter (since the standard PH16 hung down too low), but it never said where they got the oil cooler and what filter they were using. Anyone have a setup like this they can talk about?

if you need a cheap solution why don't you just start out with crush bent piping and just get a little bigger diameter than what you would with mandrel bent...yeah it looks kinda crappy but it'll work for a cheap temorary setup (i have 2 1/4 crush bent from turbo to intercooler i hate the way it looks but it works)

sigh... Yes that idea of useing the AT cooler has been discussed. Shoot I brought it up years ago. It wont get too cool, its running through the same radiator that your coolant is. Its the last couple of rows near the bottom. AT radiators have the fittings on there.

The Factory radiators are diff from the AT and MT, aftermarket ones are a different story.

The one that used the cooler adapter kit was Corbin, I beleive he used a universal one for a mustang that he found at a local store. As for the shorter filter...he never said the part number. Simply stated to go to the parts store and find a shorter one. This can be difficult for us, especially in los angeles where they are so paranoid about theft that they will get on you for just looking at the filters.

For your information, they make oil valves with thermostats for your setups. They wont open till they reach 160-180 deg F.

my bad ;-)

Originally posted by totaleklipse97

Originally posted by BlackMagic then don't worry about an oil cooler, but i definately think that a radiator for an oil cooler is overkill.

curtis, he's not talking about using the entire radiator for cooling the oil. He's not even talking about installing a 2nd radiator. I was talking to him the other day, he said something about the a/t radiator having an area that was specifically designed to cool trans fluid. He wanted to use that smaller area designed for trans fluid to cool the oil. then use the rest of the radiator as designed. I think it's a pretty cool idea. If it is efficient and effective is another story. I don't see the oil cooling below 150* running thru something as small as a transcooler. Get an oil temperature gauge, run it stock, get the readings then run the cooler and see what kind of results you get.

thats exactly what im going to do. ill let you know the tempature readings before and after with the transcooler.

I don't know why i just thought of this but couldn't you use a cold air intake as intercooler piping. Now that i think of it my AEM goes right where my smic is going to go. I wonder if that'd work?

yeah, but what size is your intake? most are 3" and most int. pipes are about 2" +/-