The CSF unit uses the factory oil cooler lines and flange style, and comes with beefy tabs which connect to the existing oil cooler mounts, to make the install extremely easy and secure.
Installation was a breeze – with the front bumper cover and plastic undertray removed, the cooler can be installed in minutes. It uses all factory mounting points, and the factory oil cooler lines just plug right in. This would be a great time to replace both O-rings on the oil lines during install – BMW # 17222245358.
Bolted up in the factory location and looking shiny! As you can see, BMW did a pretty good job with ducting to the cooler, however there’s still some room for improvement. Now many be a good time to consider improving the seal of the plastic ducting to the oil cooler’s core with weatherstripping and aluminium tape to ensure all ducted air travels through the core and not around it, to further aid cooling.
Now seemed like a good time for some new OE headlight lenses! Side note – this is the only car I’ve owned where you can simply unclip the lens itself and install a new one, no adhesive oven baking required. Pretty sweet.
13 comments
pfft… just 260? My Miata leveled out in the 290’s and I kept lapping it… tho to be fair I didn’t care if that engine let go, but its still running
Generally, bearings start to lose load-bearing capacity at 260 degrees. The B6ZE is a very strong engine with a lot of bearing area and low power, you can probably get away with this for quite a while.
Great article! Always good to have a well written story that builds from what to why to how and then, best of all, to the data. Unrelated questions: in the last picture on page 2, are those orange cylinders remote fluid reservoirs for your front dampers? If so, why are they so far from the dampers and isn’t adjusting them difficult (since they look to only be accessible with the bumper cover removed)?
Thank you!! Yes, those are the remote reservoirs. There aren’t many places to pass the reservoir lines through safely in the front – most people run them forward and then up into the engine bay somewhere, often on the strut bar. I was worried about engine bay heat, particularly on the exhaust side, and actually despite them looking far away here, it was a pretty straight shot forward thru the OE brake ducts and into the bumper area. I can get to them pretty easily with the hood open. It is a bit of a weird location, though..
I too know the pain of the ‘cool down lap.’ I have a mishimoto rad and electric fan on a wish list, but this is much much more affordable.
Does the car have any other aftermarket cooling mods?
Does the CSF retain the oil cooler thermostat?
Thanks,
Matt
Factory water radiator still, as water temps typically stay at or just above thermostat temp. I’ve deleted the clutch fan as they have a tendency to explode with track use, and I found the car didn’t need anything other than the factory AUX fan even with traffic in the summer with A/C on. I did set the AUX fan to kick in a bit earlier than factory although it’s disabled above ~40mph.
The CSF oil cooler does retain the factory 80c oil thermostat , which is in the oil filter housing. That’s it for cooling mods!
Excellent, thanks for the reply!
Nice work on the data collection! I see lots of goodies on your car 🙂 I’m a little shocked at how… not elegant the original cooler is. Single pass with a tube to bring the oil back across. So I’m not surprised the CSF cooler has similar/better pressure drop and much better cooling. Double pass and much thicker for the better cooling and the greater flow area keeping the pressure drop low.
with the new cooler did you reverse the oil thermostat mod or was it still all cooler all the time?
Hello. I wonder what’s the difference between indicated oil temperature on the gauges cluster and the temperature from the AEM temperature sensor? It would be nice to know what’s the real temperature, so I don’t have to worry too much. Thank you very much! 🙂
It’s worth emphasizing that you compared an OEM oil cooler with 120K miles on it that looks beat to hell to a brand new aftermarket unit. A true comparison would be a new OEM unit vs. the CSF cooler. I wouldn’t be surprised if a brand new OEM unit yielded similar results.
It probably would not have.
Greetings all, I have a Mishimoto radiator on my e46 M3 and I am not sure if I want to install the Mishimoto electric fan it came with it when I purchased it a few months back and delete the factory clutch fan as my car does not see much of track usage. now I want to install an oil cooler but I don’t know which one to buy CFS or Mishimoto? been doing some research and I couldn’t find any data on the Mishimoto oil cooler like the one posted about the CFS cooler on this amazing and pretty helpful article.
Any recommendation will be really appreciated.