After my 2 sessions at Easter and some contemplating later… it is time to teardown some bits and improve the car!
Cooling the oil.
While the SAAB donor car came with a small oil cooler from the factory I deemed it to small for serious track use so i brought an 19row oilcooler even before the project even started.
The new oil cooler is 2,5times bigger in size and capacity, it seems that it wasn’t enough last time out as oil temps rised to a steady 118’C with a 18’C degree ambient temp.
That can mean 2 things, A: the cooler is indeed to small or B: the airflow towards & from the oil cooler is very turbulent.
Option A is not really likely, and B is very much my first go to.
Here is a image how the oilcooler is currently located.
Somewhat in front of the foglight hole and very much in the airflow of my left front wheel.
Also, the front wheels are rubbing my intercooler pipes on max lock… hmm
Anyway… the idea is to rotate the oil cooler even more, and tilt the top towards the front of the bumper.
This way the height difference between the bumper opening and the total height of the oil cooler reduces, keeping the air speed higher, and by rotating it the hot-air-exit ducting is already more towards the hot-air-exit-duct for the radiator.
What will help also is that we will close the front fenders again, the idea was to tub them but never got to that point.
But that big gaping hole now is massively interfering with my oil cooler air feed.
closing the gap it is.
Boost.
As already mentioned, the front wheels are rubbing on the intercooler pipes.. that means re-routing them.
This also helps with the hot-air-exit duct from the oil cooler al the oil lines are also lower in the car (oh wow, also lowering the center of gravity of my car!)
Re-routing the pipes have the added beneficts of reducing some dead chassis weight as i have to chop off the front anti-roll bar mounts.
Since I can’t run any front bar anyway I see no problem 🙂
As you can see from the 20cm alloy test tube, we will stick the intercooler pipe to go trough there, going below the chassis legs.
Might run the oil cooler lines next to it, have to check if there’s enough room for them.
And yes, that is how low i run my radiator.
And yes, it is a bitch to bleed.
Driver cooling
Also on easter it was the first time running the car at decent ambient temperatures… well.. it got a bit hot inside.
As we where thinking about a front windscreen defroster setup, why not add a third tube for driver frosting?
But where to get the ambient air from?!
Engine room is an obvious location, good for defrosting as it is hot air but not so good for driver cooling.
Since my mate Jan has a similar problem (high cabin temps) and the same chassis, we came both with the same idea, although his would be simpeler to implement.
Nothing is ever simple with my car.
Let me explain.
There is a low pressure area at the base of your windscreen/end of your bonnet… making it natural for the air to move there. And BMW added slots in the bonnet on that location for the fresh air supply of the heater matrix in the E36. (sedan is slightly different)
So not why not use that?
i looked into my old parts pile and hey presto! i still had the required piece… without the rubber seal to the bonnet..
And now the never simple with my car part.
This black(ish) part above my engine will fit any E36 Coupe with an BMW engine in it… here.. somebody had to put a SAAB in the way.
To make this concept work, i have to modify the under-bonnet-cool-air-tray to seal it from the hot enginebay.. as there is an obvious engine sticking trough that part. 🙂
A well, in the end it should help me driving the car at 10/10ths for a longer period of time.
And it will look also fantastic… that too.
Hopefully i get all these (and some more) updates finished before the end of May.
I will participate in a charity event for Rally for Kids!