Hey David,

When I had my engine rebuilt recently I installed both an external
tranny cooler and oil cooler for the exact purpose of extending it's
life as you with to do.

I bought the oil cooler from BusBoys. Its en EMPI unit I believe. Was
very reasonably priced. Since the installation it runs a lot cooler. I
am on the East Coast in upstate NY with trips to the city. Its running
consistently below the light indicator, it only pops up above it or
goes way up when I am in the city during the summer in stop and go
traffic.

I did not want to spend the money for AN fittings and steel braided
lines so I used what came in the kit and added a stainless steel
stoneguard around all the rubber oil lines to and from the cooler. The
stoneguard is basically a giant long coil of Stainless Steel that
encases the rubber hose to prevent rocks from damaging the hose in any
way. The coil ends are sharp so be sure you sand them down and place
good thick rubber caps over them to prevent them from damaging the
hose. Then use heat shrink tubing over them to keep them in place.

Where the lines meet the in the engine bay it has a thermostatically
controlled valve that I believe opens at 180 degrees and is mounted
after the stock oil cooler so it warms up to the proper temp before
activating. The stock recommended oil filter bolts to the
thermostatically controlled unit as it normally would mount to the
standard cooler. The rubber hoses within the engine bay all have heat
shielded sheaths that cover the stoneguard as well. This was done to
prevent unwanted heat from the engine bay further heating the oil.
These Sheaths protect up to 2000 degrees so these hoses should not get
dry rot from consistent engine heat.

The van recently passed 1,000 miles on the new engine, has had 2 oil
changes since I have run it. The oil after the first 500 miles was
very clean, no nasty particles and its running great, very strong for
an automatic. I recently had driven it for 3 hours at a time on the
highway during temps in the 50s-60's on the highway and it stayed
totally cool.

Currently since it's a new engine I am running Standard Dino Oil with
no issues.

Hope that info helps.

Robert
NY

On Oct 20, 2009, at 1:42 AM, David Cohen wrote:

> Hi,
>  I was wondering if an external oil cooler, bigger than the stock
> one, is
> good for extending the life of a stock 2.1 motor in a 1990  Vanagon?
>
> Thanks,
> David