Oil Cooler location on SBC 400

[Joel Wilson]

I recently rebuilt the 400 and had planned on installing an engine oil cooler and a power steering cooler sandwiched on top of another with an electric fan with this mounted over on the passenger inner fender. The engine oil filter was going to be mounted on the driver's side inner fender with the cooling lines run over the top of the engine. Not the greatest, but they were protected well enough. I don't have the engine cooler hooked up yet, but I did have the power steering cooler hooked up and I noticed that it was leaking the fluid out the top of the cap. I really don't have a whole lot of space below the power steering pump that is going to be safe from road and trail hazards. So I found a tube and fin cooler that will fit under the radiator and that came in the snail mail yesterday. Should be straight forward enough. My question is since the power steering cooler drained back, will the engine oil cooler drain back as well? If it does, will that cause an interuption of oil flow at startup, not to mention the oil dipstick reading high. I wonder if the drain back valve in the filter would stop the flow and which way would I have to plumb the cooler in order for the drain back valve to work? I plan on using the K&N 2 qt filter for our SBC's. I have a lot of time and money invested in my Jimmy and the engine and don't want to kill the engine prematurely and I'm due for the non breakin oil change so I figured this would be a good time to plumb everything in.

Thanks, Joel norcal

 

[nvrenuf]

It's been a long time since I looked at one but a factory oil cooler used an adapter sandwiched between the bock and filter, I think it has a drain back valve in it.

I think I'd try to avoid plumbing all the way over to the pass side, seems like a lot of opportunity for failure. If you have to, I'd make some hard lines and attach them to the firewall and then use short hose runs to connect everything.