The air to oil coolers have gotten a bad rap by rookies because they were poorly done; thus people have concluded they don't work when it was done with poor application.
The cooler that was on my car was common to many panteras and was in the wheel well with a vent. Unfortunately the air even with the vent was stagnant and did not do anything.
I have done oil coolers on other cars and even small oil coolers with good airflow made huge differences.
Fundamentally I don't like and did not want the water/radiator oil cooler nor did I want long oil lines to the front of the car. I simply don't like the fundamentals of long lines, and heat robbed from the radiator.
Not to mention the chance of mixing water and oil!
I wanted an air cooled oil cooler and I want it to work. Since I am making so many changes to the car it was not hard to do it in a more ideal way.
First I wanted cooler on left side of car. My cooler before was on the right side and I don't want oil lines ran under the car. So, I built a gas tank for the right side. This gave me room to do what I wanted.
Second I wanted to duct the air out of the left vent. Since it is not an elephant scoop and since I wanted it to work in "traffic" the cooler has a big fan which pulls the air through the duct.
And there is a duct to surround it all.
Sorry I don't have a photo of the oil cooler mounted in the duct.
Cooling the oil is not the only thing that keeps temp down. What I learned from guys running lots of power was that the transaxle will last with high HP on a track IF>>>>>>>>>
1. Fluid is cooled
2. Fluid is changed
I already removed the air conditioner (I don't run A/C in any of my cars anyway even in summer). Trans cooler added:
