Just a thought. My RX7 used to have 2 engine oil coolers but a rotary engine does use oil for lubrication and as a method to cool the engine. Do you think there would be any benefit on a Ranger? I'm thinking the engine would take a lot longer to warm up. What are your thoughts on this?

 

For heavy duty off roading, or towing, I would say it would be good. Just as a DD though, I would say its a waste...

 

Well my truck is a DD and I offroad like 2-3 times a month. I do a lot of low speed crawling when I offroad and I thought maybe I should add a little extra protection for the motor.

 

aint no sense in it.....oil now a days is so advanced, they can take the extra heat....

 

Tell that to Mazda. They still use an engine oil cooler in RX8's. Yes I know a rotary is different than a piston engine.

 

Your Ranger doesn't need an engine oil cooler for low RPM use such as crawling. Some engines benefit from a cooler when they are operated at high RPM for extended periods. Ford installs them from the factory when testing shows that they are necessary.

 

My Lightning engine has a cooler. It ducts coolant from the lower rad -to- block port, back to a small cooler that the filter screws into, and then back to the inlet side of the block.

It's really overkill unless your at high rpms for extended times.

Rich

 

What would you define as high RPMs for extended periods? Are we talking 3.5K for 30 minutes would justify an engine cooler, or redlining for hours on end?

 

Just running up to red line through the gears should not be a problem. In most cars, it takes a few minutes of sustained high R's for the oil temp to climb toward the danger zone. So, you usually see engine oil coolers in applications like police cars, hipo cars/trucks and in vehicles with high trailer tow ratings.

The 5.0 Explorer engine has a factory oil-to-coolant heat exchanger similar to the one Rich described above, probably to satisfy trailer tow test requirements. I doubt that my truck really needs it though.

 

That's why I brought this up. When I'm in low gear I have the revs up to around 3- 4k until I shift which is rarely because I'm crawling up something and I don't need the speed.

I just realized I spelled cooler as coller. LOL