After probably 4 years of putting it off, like most things, I've finally done the oil cooler setup.

For too long I've pushed the oil temp to 130-140 degrees at the track. Luckily nothing has gone wrong with the motor yet.. I do use a good oil (Penrite 10w40 racing tenths) and change it every few track days, but I wouldn't be surprised if theres some heat damage to the motor. For a long time I've only had the oil temp gauge working as the aftermarket oil pressure sensor always seemed to max out since I got it, even with the car idling whilst warmed up.

With the oil cooler install, I'll be fitting a Bosch combination sensor to read oil temp and oil pressure, running the analog sensor outputs to the Hondata S300 and configuring on the analog input which will send it's data on the CANBus network. I'll cover this in a future post, but I've built my own race dash to display this data on a 7" LCD behind the steering wheel.

Parts:

• PWR Oil Cooler ~ 14 row (280 x 127 x 37mm)
• GREDDY OIL SANDWICH PLATE (3/4X16UNF)
• Bosch combination 145 PSI temp & pressure sensor
• 247 fittings - braided hose
• 247 fittings - 90 degree fittings x2
• 247 fittings - straight fittings x2

Also bought the fancy tools

Cooler fitment

As the lines will run down the passenger side of the engine bay, it only makes sense the cooler goes this side. I'll have enough room to send the lines between the radiator support and the radiator itself.

The base of the radiator support is thin weak metal, but I believe it should be fine to use. I started off with drill 2 holes and inserting rivnuts so there would be 1 either side. After doing this, I realise it was a bit wobbly back and forth, so did 2 either side.

To secure the cooler from the top, I took 2.5" exhaust off cut, cut it to open it up and worked it on the vice's anvil into the required twisted shape to bolt between the original power steering mounting spot, and the cooler. I bought some 'anti vibration rubber isolator mounts', which were smaller than what I thought they'd be, but still managed to make it work. Quick slap of paint and she's sweet (ignore the) lines already being made in the photo, writing this up in the future..

Making the lines:

I was nervous about this part from the start, but it turned out to be quite easy. With the new sandwich plate fitting to the engine, I actually had a spare piece of hose a frined Myles lent me to mock up roughly much I'd need so I didn't order too much. I used this to then confirm the length required on the day for the 2 lines.

Once measured up, I cut both lines with an angle grinder. Everyone does it differently, I was told not to use the cutters and to angle grind instead, just blow out the line afterwards.

With my 2 hoses cut, I assembled them with the various fittings. Again, this really wasn't that hard and somewhat fun. Do they look professionally made or professionally made!?

Sandwich plate misery + center bolt + filter

Now this is where the misery occurred, all around the stupid center bolt. To start with when test fitting everything, I noticed my normal B series oil filter was too large for the sandwich plate shown in the photo below. Quick confirmation with my mate, I gotta use a K series filter (comparing the specs of B vs K, the K seems to be a touch better)

B series filter

K series filter

I don't have many photos to show, but essentially what happened is this the Greddy sandwich plate comes with a centre bolt female: 3/4X16UNF | male: M20x1.5, so it bolts onto the block fine, but the filter is loose on the thread. This is because they try to force you onto their own filter, which is a toyota filter.

I have some spare universal centre bolts, however the M20x1.5 were either too long on the filter part, or the correct length but too narrow by 1mm. I found Greddy used to sell a female & male ended M20x1.5 centre bolt but I could not find it for sale anywhere. Luckily when I went to my mates shop to pick up some parts, he had one. Annoying I had to spend the odd $40 on it but atleast its sorted (bottom centre bolt in the 2nd photo below).

Sensor fitment

The Greddy sandwich plate doesn't come with any provisions for sensors, making me dislike this sandwich plate setup even more considering the above. My mate Myles suggested to do it how he has before, drill and tap the spare bung. Sounds like a good idea, so heres the bung and sensor pictured below. I had to buy a specific tap as the Bosch sensor uses a very fine M10x1mm thread.. Another once off Amazon tool purchased

Testing the tap on some scrap alloy, seems to work fine!

Measuring up the bung and sensor, you can see once the sensor sits flush with the top of the bung it actually won't protrude the end of the bung. Confirming with an engineer mate, "should be fine"..

So we start drilling on my brand new bench pressure, lovely!

My first time tapping a hole (apart from the test piece above), luckily I have no spare bungs so it's a full send!

Annnd we're done! Wasn't too bad at all. I applied Permatex high performance thread sealant, tightened everything up and thats that. Definitely a sexy looking piece!

Oil sensor wiring

This my efforts towards 'proper motorsport' setup on the Civic going forth, I went ahead and purchased some "44 Spec Raychem wire #22 gauge (10 metres in each colour ~ red, black, white)", along with a new heat shrink assortment box. I was amazed by how thin the wire was! I've always wanted to redo my entire harness one day, and this wire would be perfect for that. For now we will just use it for the Bosch sensor to ECU and necessary wires.

In addition, I purchased some 1.5k Ohm 0.5 Watt metal film resistors to wire in the temp sensor part. This connects between the analog input sensor wire to ECU and a 5V source, to ensure a correct and measurable range is provided to the ECU. I'll explain this in depth further down

Also purchased a new crimpy tool, snazzy piece made in Japan. First time doing these style of crimps, plus with such fine wire. Turned out decently in the end. I made sure to have a lot of extra wire as I wasn't 100% on how I'd route this under the dash.

So how did I go about wiring this into the Civic (below is the Bosch data sheet as well):

• 5V to sensor (to D20 - VCC2 Sensor Voltage for TPS)
• Ground to sensor (to D22 - SG2 Sensor Ground)
• Analog temp signal from sensor (Analog pin 1 + 1.5k pull up resistor to "D20 - VCC2 Sensor Voltage for TPS")
• Analog pressure signal from sensor (Analog pin 2)

This was a bit annoying to make it look pretty under the dash with the need of the pull up resistor, few attempts at using an inline crimp to secure the resistor as it kept snapping the leg on the resistor.

Sources: Hondata S300 - Analog Temperature | Hondata S300 - Analog Pressure

Hondata analog input config

One issue I had was the hondata started reading the incorrect oil temp reading, as if it wasn't applying the specific equation to convert the value. I rewired the resistor multiple times with no luck, reconfigured the sensor in the hondata multiple times with no luck either. Bunch of testing between each point of the whole wiring with the multi metre etc. Eventually I found the culprit, being the terminal for the oil temp signal wire inside the hondata analog connector was lifted up, meaning it wasn't making full contact with the pin on the board. A lot of time went into trying to diagnose this, but at least it was resolved in the end..

Final line routing + finished!

With everything assembled, this was the final routing of the lines I went with. As hose was already kinked from being rolled up, it worked quite nicely with the route I was taking through the bay. It's pushed itself against the chassis rail, so I felt a few cable ties to hold it in place should do the trick. Some cut up coolant hose has been added on the section at the base of the strut tower if you look closely. I might need to add some around the radiator section.

The red line is how much I filled the oil up, then cranked the motor over for a while to get oil through the lines and into the cooler. It sat around 2 psi for while, eventually moving up to 9-10 psi. I then started it and watch it shoot up to 70-80 psi which was a good sign!.

The dipstick photo below is also after the car had run and got to temp, can see it still sat above the "full" mark nicely. I usually have it an additional amount over for track use, as most B series people tend to do.

With bumper on, you can see the bottom quarter of the cooler arent getting direct air. This might be something to fix in the future with a custom bumper!