damn thing has a few pounds of weight behind it!

As predicted oil pressure went up noticeably

Couldn't get the correct bypass hose here so I just bout a pac of heater bypass caps from autozone for $1.99 and capped off the tube on the WP and the one on the radiator. Couple screw clamps and all is well.

Fairly cheap mod to get rid of a few more pounds and get a little more pressure to this tired engine

 

what size bolts did you use to replace the two studs that prevent the oil filter from screwing on ?

 

5/16-18 x 1"

 

i want to go do this mod now but i just changed my oil, obviously oil will spill out when i pull the oil filter off but its only about a quart i think , it wont empty the entire oil pans worth correct? You think i should go do this now and add the difference in oil back of wait till next oil change

 

My oils has only been in about 1000 miles. you only lose about half a quart doing this. I just refilled the filter and put it back on after cleaning it up.
Then I started it for a minute, shut it back off and checked the oil about 5 minutes later. didn't take much to top it off.

 

What psi difference are we talking about here, and is it worth it to having a little hotter oil?

 

Well, I don't think the cooler is all that effective anyway. using coolant to cool oil. I think it would be better if it were air cooled in a heat exchange type of situation. Since the coolant is already hot, how much heat could it remove from the oil anyway?

Normally when I start the car or am at highway speed, I have about 40psi
now I have 60

 

I picked up 10-15psi depending on rpm etc

 

Interestingly, my oil pressure didn't drop when I added an oil cooler. The coolant to oil system works because under heavy power conditions, oil is much hotter than coolant, or can be. Think about it, almost the only thing that cools pistons is oil.

 

do all Fbodys have the coolers? or only M6?

 

Mine's an A4 car and has it. Check under your hood for two heater hose size tubes running along the bottom of the engine on the drivers side back to where the oil filter is...

 

According to the 1995 Firebird brochure, mine is supposed to have the oil cooler, since it's got the optional 3.23 gears, but mine didn't get one. I guess I'm lucky by the sounds of it, it's one less thing to worry about.

 

mine's coming off when 750 miles of Auto-RX is done, should be interesting to see how the oil pressure reacts.

Thanks for the info Timberwolf

 

The oil cooler is a collar that goes above the oil filter.

Its recommended that you remove it if you ever doa cam install because the cam lube can clog it.

 

By not running a hose from the pump to the radiator (as the car would come from GM if it didn't have an oil cooler), aren't you reducing the amount of time your coolant spends in the radiator? If you haven't seen a reduction in your coolant temps, that's probably why. As far as coolant being too hot to cool oil, if you really push your car you'll see oil temps of 300+ degrees after about 10 minutes in summer weather, which is much hotter than your coolant will/can ever get. The factory oil cooler seems to be worth about 20 degrees of oil temp reduction compared to not having one in stressed conditions. For street driving though, the cooler is definitely not necessary, especially with synthetic oil.

RichJ