Oil Filter Coolers- Beneficial Or Not?

[dbbd1]

I am not an engineer but this question has been niggling at me. When are those slipover (and maybe a set screw) type oil filter coolers a good thing? I am not even remotely curious about it for the TJ. With the straight 6, there is ample cooling. Just browsing the interwebs and saw them.

So...
At what point do those stop assisting in cooling and start withholding heat in? If ever. Assume a good fit, but not too snug, even though most are a set size and for a few different diameter filters. No paint, no anodizing, just plain aluminum for the finned "cooler." No thermal transfer compound, just surface to surface contact. What kind of heat transfer can you expect to make it worthwhile? Any, or are you just making the situation worse, by adding a "jacket" around the filter?

 

[Jerry Bransford]

It would have such a miniscule effect on oil temperature as to be effectively useless.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

from purely a heat transfer perspective, with good contact it definitely won't hold heat in. Conduction into aluminum will always carry more heat away than convection off a smooth steel filter case and if the surface area of the aluminum is greater than that of the case, it will reject more heat into the air than the bare case would have. However, if there is an air gap at all, it could have the opposite effect as the filter housing is surrounded in stagnant hot air. Because manufacturing tolerances, the only way to assure good contact would be to fill any voids with a thermal conductive paste like what's used between an electronic device and its heat sink, or in thermal wells for a temperature sensor in the HVAC or fluid laboratory environment.

But in application, there's just not enough surface area between the oil and the filter case to provide any significant cooling.

 

[Zorba]

Thermal conductive paste would help it significantly - with that said, you either need an oil cooler or you do not - and "that ain't it". Sort of like a smartphone come to think of it - you either need a computer or you do not - and "that ain't it"!

 

[Steel City 06]

You can actually get oil cooler kits that relocate the filter and run the oil through a fin and plate style cooler, just like a transmission cooler.

For example:
https://www.quadratec.com/products/94000_03_07.htm
I don’t think it would have any significant benefit for a stock or near-stock engine. In fact, you might even over-cool the oil and prevent condensation from being driven out, thus turning the oil into sludge.

Ideally, these kits are run with a thermostat, usually set to 190-220 degrees. The thermostat acts just like a coolant thermostat, and ensures that the operating temperature is reached before cooling begins.

 

[pagrey]

Cooling system passages are carefully designed to keep the oil at a certain temperature with respect to the coolant. When you add an oil cooler you start to change this ratio. For example if the oil is supposed to be kept very hot there will be very few coolant passages in the block near the oil passages. If the temperatures are supposed to be very similar there will be coolant passages surrounding the oil passages. By design at a given coolant temp the oil temp stabilizes at some higher temperature. If you don't have a good reason for changing the ratio you shouldn't. You aren't going to change the overall engine temperature but you are going to change the ratio between the oil and coolant temperature.

Those finned oil coolers for oil filters work fine on light aircraft that don't have well regulated oil temps.