Well, removed the oil cooler last night pretty easy to do. I was interested to see how the removal would effect the oil pressure. There was a lot of debris up against the heat exchanger fins in the cooler, enough to impede the flow. Not sure what the debris was, some of it looked like bits of orange silicone gasket. I'll take a closer look tonight and possibly snap a few pics.

Overall the oil pressure gauge responds more quickly than it did before. when cold the pressure is about 7-8 psi higher, after warming up however the idle pressure remained the same and hovers around 12 psi ( based on the dash gauge which reads 3 to 4 psi lower than a mechanical gauge). Also pressure at higher rpms reads higher than it did before.

Just wanted to throw my observations out there in case anyone else was thinking of doing this. If you have a high mileage motor (mine's at 151,000) it could be worth a few psi.

 

I also have taken mine off with no ill effects.

 

Im considering doing this too, while I have the engine out... I just dont see why GM would spend the money to put the system there If it was useless. Anyone have any long term effects with this??

 

The oil cooler is designed for the "extreme duty" that the LT1 sees. IMO, unless you are running a bracket racer or a towing rig there is no need to worry about it. GM sold the LT1 with or without a cooler depending on what configuration you ordered. They both use the same filter, so there must not be much of a difference. If you are concerned, just run a larger filter than the stock one. I think that you'd be better off running a larger filter than a cooler anyway

 

My 97SS came with the optional cooler. The bottom went out at 8K. I don't know,nor will I ever know why, since I babied the car since new.

There was metal shavings in the cooler, but I don't know if that's what caused the failure or not.

Mech. couldn't find a new one and didn't want to put the used one on the new short block.

I'm glad that he didn't , because it seems that if you don't clean the cooler when you change the filter, that the thing stays contaminated and could cause low pressure resulting in bearing failure. Just an observation.

 

No metal shavings (that I could see) in mine, haven't taken it apart yet though. I did see lots of little bits of black and brown, if I didn't know any better I would swear it looks like sand, Not sure how that could have gotten in there, I'm the original owner and the engine has been well taken care of. I'll take it apart tonight and see what I can find.

 

i thought oil coolers were supposed to prolong the life of a motor.. not kill it. in theory lower oil temps should keep your pressure up but for some reason that factory cooler actually lowers the oil pressure too?? its not that i dont believe what you guys claim.. i just doesnt make much sense to me. if anyone knows why the factory cooler is such a pos then id love to hear it

 

I think the oil cooler works well, its just that in my case, after 151,000 miles it was blocked up with alot of debris. Sure I could clean it and put it back in, but I dont plan for this motor to last another 150k, hopefully I will be able to rebuild it this winter. Therefore I don't mind not having it installed in the interim.

 

Because with it, my filter won't go on. (I have FLPs)

 

Could some one give me a list of the parts needed to complete this job. I read that you need two bolts to replace teh studs, these are jsut regular bolts right, no special kind of head on them? But what else is needed besides the bolts? I am trying to only make one trip to the parts store, but that rarely happens, haha. Thanks.

 

Qty: 2, 5/16-18 X 1.0" long cap screws, (suggest socket head however I was able to use a regular hex head). Used to replace the two bolts with locating pin heads which would interfere with the oil filter.

And a 5/8 hose coupling with two stainless steel band clamps, used to connect the hoses left after removing the cooler. Some have just succesfully plugged the hoses, I added a coupling with a couple band clamps . Sounds like you could do it either way..

Was able to get everything from the local autostore, (Murray's)

P.S, you will want to drain your coolant.. I thought I could just clamp off the hoses, which of course didn't work. Ended up rushing to the store to get more coolant before it closed...