3D Printing an Oil Cooler Duct With BD Engineering

Next Nikita scans what is behind the bumper and the front of the oil cooler to determine how much room he has to place the duct to feel the cooler.

Next the optional STI fog light cover is scanned.  The duct is going to take the place of the cover.

The front side of the cover is scanned first.

10 comments

  1. The trouble with the Aesub spray is it is pretty pricey at $40 a can. Back when I last did a scanning project a couple years ago it was closer to $60. I ended up using Magnaflux SDK-S2 developer which was a little better at a little under $30 a can, but still expensive. It doesn’t evaporate on its own, but leaves behind a chalky residue that is easy to clean up.

    That said, it seems the real budget option is to go for talc, corn starch or baby powder mixed with rubbing alcohol. I haven’t had a chance to try this myself, but plan to use it at the next opportunity.

    1. The disappearing feature is pretty good for me and worth the price to me especially when doing stuff like suspension, brakes and inside of the the core support, the cleanup would take a long time.

  2. That’s really cool, what a great use of 3D scanning and printing. I’m really glad you guys showed how much work goes into finishing a printed part to an OEM level finish. The finished part turned out great!

  3. > This is really cool and we will probably have to run the stock cover for winter driving to avoid overcooling the oil!

    Is there reason not to run an oil thermostat sandwich to the cooler to avoid overcooling?

    Great article!

    1. I don’t like them as they can restrict flow, however, the Greddy cooler uses one. I am not sure what temperature it opens at.

    2. On Project S2000, I had to cover up some of the front bumper airflow opening in winter taking the highway to the track to reduce airflow to the oil cooler. Even though I had a Mocal thermostatic sandwich plate, it still always flows some oil. If the oil in the oil cooler were completely cut off, then it would be very cold when the thermostat opened up and could thermally shock hot components it comes in touch with.

  4. What polymer was the component printed from? Fantastic work on getting the fitment and then surface finish so good.

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