Coolant filtration w/ BPD External Oil Cooler?

[pac'em out]

How many of you are still running coolant filtration with your BPD external oil cooler? I'm getting ready to take the leap for the BPD system, but already have the Sinister oil/coolant filter setup installed. Since the BPD setup comes with an improved oil filter, I was considering selling my Sinister setup and recouping a few hundred dollars. What do you all think?

[ritschner]

I would run coolant filtration regardless. Sell the Sinister setup for a few hundred and buy a coolant filter setup from a sponsor for around a hundred or build your own using a remote oil filter mount and fittings for under fifty.

[TKOPerformance]

Not sold on the BDP remote system. Its a lot of money that seems wasted. The issues with the factory system is the cooler can plug from the crappy Ford gold coolant and lack of filtration. You've solved half that problem at least, if you swapped to ELC you've solved all of it. A factory oil cooler is $210. Even if it remained an issue I can replace that a lot of times for the cost of the BPD system. I also do not like the issues it will have in cold weather, which in CO you need to be aware of. Just my $0.02, its your truck and your money.

[pac'em out]

Yeah, I won't argue the fact that it's expensive. But, i do my own work and don't have time to replace multiple oil coolers. This truck is my toy hauler and here in the West we take heavy loads over 10000+ft mountain passes. BPD also makes a cold weather kit to take care of the concerns in cold weather. My dad always said, something worth doing is worth doing RIGHT.

[TKOPerformance]

To each his own. It seems that your mind is made up, and that you've done your research. I initially was going to go with that system too, before I ever even had an OC issue. The more I read about it the more I became convinced that the issue was not the cooler location or design, but rather the siclicates in the gold coolant and the lack of coolant filtration. Ultimately when it was time I decided not to go forward with the BPD system and stick with the OEM setup running ELC and a coolant filter. I suppose time will tell the ultimate tale.

[tman]

I am considering the same thing for my truck.

I have been running ELC & a Performance Mfg coolant filter for the last 50,000 miles and am still having OC issues. It takes the OC longer to become clogged and its increasingly harder to clean.

The design and location of the OC and associated plumbing is piss poor in my opinion. Nearly every OC failure could have been averted had they redeigned the circuit that feeds the OC and included a coolant filter with a restriction monitoring system that illuminated a reminder on the dash and put the engine into the limp mode when it became too restricted and used a different coolant.

I don't know how the manufactures vett the vehicles they produce but apparently it is not done in the real word.

If it had they would have know 99% of the problems ahead of time and took steps to eliminate them and reduce their repair cost to a resonable level, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in warranty repairs and endless lawsuits.

It seems the BPD System, while expensive, is probably the best system out there at the present time, especially for us folks that use our trucks for more than a daily driver or for someone that is going to keep the truck for a long time.

Just my .02

[TKOPerformance]

You can't just swap the OC and change the coolant. You need to do a complete system flush with Restore and Restore Plus to ensure that everything is out of the system. Then change the OC, so you don't clog it with the flush. Then top it off with ELC. You do that you'll never have a problem with it again.

It's tough to properly real world test a truck prior to release. Putting 100k on a truck in a month on a test track leaves a lot to be desired, but they don't have 10 years to test a new model before they release them. In the end the sad truth is that they are tested in the real world by you and me, and then solutions are come up with by the aftermarket. I'm not saying its right, but it is our reality.

[Portagie1968]

ELC Coolant ?? It can keep the truck as cool.

[TKOPerformance]

Extended Life Coolant, but you need to make sure you get one that carries a CAT EC-1 rating. It's typically a pinkish color. It's what all the heavy Diesels use. The gold crap that Ford puts in these trucks at the factory is the same stuff they run in their cars. It might be fine for gas engine use, but it simply does not handle the heat well in a Diesel, coupled with being chock full of silicates. This creates gelatinous globs in the cooling system that clog up the oil cooler and EGR cooler leading to expensive repair bills.

[iwejun]

I just dropped the 3k to have a Bulletproof EGR cooler and remote air to oil cooler. I'm no longer looking at my guage watching the oil temp get hotter and hotter, today it was consistently 15 to 20 degrees cooler than my coolant which is now ELC also. IMO best investment I've done so far for peace of mind towing and longevity. I don't have time to replace clogged oil coolers or the place to do it.

[shoguy89]

One of the things we've come up with is an external oil cooler that is in a kidney loop and not connected to the engine's oiling system at all. It's all done at the oil pan.

We start by draining the oil and welding AN -8 Weld Bungs to the oil pan along with a threaded bung for the temp switch. The kit comes with the pump and 12"x14" Stacked Plate oil cooler with 1/2"NPT fittings. The pump mounts on the frame, the cooler mounts behind the grill and the switch turns the pump on. When the oil gets to a certain temp, the pump kicks on and pulls hot oil out of the oil pan and cools it thru the cooler, then puts it right back into the oil pan. The cooled oil is then picked up in the sump and pumped thru the engine. Works like a champ. There's no over cooling, there's no added warm-up time and there's no danger of springing a pressure leak. In our system, there's no pressure, just volume. We're pulling the oil out of the sump, cooling it and putting it right back in the same sump.

I figured out how to do this kind of oil cooling some time back and I use it on my race car. I have a 1990 Taurus SHO that is a road race car. In the heat of summer, my coolant temps would really get high (+230*). That's not overheating, but still too high. If the coolant temps are that high, you know the oil is even hotter. So I cut a 12" hole in the bottom of the spare tire well and recessed an electric fan in the hole then mounted the oil cooler over top of the fan. I have a dual oil filter mount and an electric oil pump. The back of the oil pan is tapped with a 1/2" fitting for the outlet (oil to cooler). The pump pulls oil from the pan and thru the cooler, then pumps the oil thru the filters and back to the engine where I have a fitting in the front of the oil pan pointed right at the pickup. So the engine is always breathing cooled filtered oil. this dropped my coolant temperatures by 40*. I can idle the car in the hot pits and the needle goes up to 3/4 and cycles the cooling fans. Then 3 laps into the run, the gauge goes down to 1/3 and stays there until I come off the track.

In thinking about it, the engine oil has to do a couple of things. It has to lubricate all the internal parts, but it also has to absorb the heat of friction. This heat is rejected thru the oil cooler into the cooling system, then rejected out of the radiator. With my race car, I am cooling the oil independently and not thru the coolant. This made the cooling system that much more efficient which is why the engine ran cooler under the most extreme running conditions.

We do this same system for transmissions. The older E4OD and 4R100 transmission get into a vicious heat cycle and can't get out of it no matter how many coolers you have in the line. But by cooling the oil in the pan, the cycle is broken and the transmission runs as cool as you want it to (160-180* is ideal).

Give us a call, we'll tell you all about it.

[TKOPerformance]

How much work was it to strike the balance between over circulating the oil, and thus adding heat by pumping it, and cooling it. In another way this could work to boost power by working as a semi dry sump if there's a problem with too much oil in the pan. All that oil in the pan turns to a frothy, taffy looking mess as it ropes all over the reciprocating parts. That's power loss through windage as well as aerated oil which doesn't work too well to keep the crank and rods off the bearings.

Does the factory oil cooler remain in place, or do you eliminate it?

[shoguy89]

Oil volume and oil level are unaffected as the system never drains. It is solid with oil at all times. Furthermore, there is no heat gained in the system as there is no pressure, only volume. The temperature switch closes at a predetermined point and opens when the oil cools. Windage would not be effected.

The factory oil cooler remains untouched. So on a 6.0L engine with an full EGR delete, this type of system would do the job even if the oil cooler was completely stopped up. This type of system works well on a 6.4L too, because the coolant loop of a 6.4L oil cooler is all by itself. The EGR coolers are on a separate loop.

[shoguy89]

This type of system works great in for a transmission too. I had a customer with an Excursion all jacked up on 22" Semi rims and lifted. He melted his transmission and we fixed it. Afterwords, the transmission was still getting very hot on long pulls at highway speeds. We installed our cooler kit and on my roadtest, I was able to get the temps to 220*. Once the transmission got hot, I switched on the pump and before I could get my eyes off of the switch, back on the road and then back up to the gauge, the temp was 218* and falling. After that, I could not get it over 170* no matter what I tried.

[TKOPerformance]

How much volume does it add the system? How is draining handled at oil change time?