So I have been working on loose ends that showed up after my first season of driving a v8 miata, and proper cooling is still one of the gremlins I fight. I haven't even got my AC functional yet, and yet the car still gets hot just driving around on days over about 65 degrees ambient. It is ALWAYS manageable if I turn on the heat inside the car, but as it turns out I don't like to do that.

Before you go into anything with the cooling system, know that I have a FM radiator/fan combo, fans are turning the correct direction, system has been vacuum bled, and I have in all of my duct work and belly pan parts, trimmed to fit around some new stuff. I don't think I have a problem there. I also cut the holes in the hood to give the air somewhere to go.

Now my question, I am wanting to go ahead and put together an oil cooler so that I can try to pull some heat out that way, but I am just wondering, where are you guys putting your coolers if you have one? I don't want to put it in front of the radiator obviously because I would just be putting heat right back in. Ideas?

 

Silly question, but what temp thermostat are you running?

 

Stock

 

I have mine in front of the right side of the radiator. The hoses run forward from the LR corner of the oil pan to the remote filter, which is mounted at the RF corner of the motor, where the A/C compressor would go if I had A/C. Then the hoses run around the right lower side of the radiator to the cooler.

 

I had mine located in the original washer bottle bracket in the front of the driver's side wheel well. It seemed to work fine there but routing air around the side of the radiator was a problem. Before I sold the car I mounted a very short one in the nose about 6" from the radiator core. It looked cool there and did not block flow to the radiator while still cooling the oil pretty effectively. My original wheel well mounted one was 9X9" and the nose mounted one was 2x12". Both used -8AN hose although next time I think I'll step it up to -10AN for the added capacity.

-Jason

 

I had cooling problems with my LS1 Nb miata unitl I discovered the system had air pockets. The heater core inlet/outlets are higher than the radiatior. I purchased a Prestone flush kit like this... https://www.walmart.com/ip/Prestone-...13=572&veh=sem
and spliced that little black piece into one of the heater hoses. When the engine is cool, use a cup and top off the coolant there. Run it till it gets up to temperature. Let it cool down and repeat this process about 3 times then all air will be out of the system and presto....no more heating problems.

 

Here's my last one. With the nose off:



Nose back on:



-Jason