Oil Cooler for B&S OHV Engines

[Lawn_Slave]

Is there a way to add an oil cooler to a Briggs & Stratton 12.5HP or 13.5HP OHV type engine that has the oil pump and oil filter? I know that there is a sandwitch type of adapter for auto engines that mounts between the block and the filter that allows a remote cooler to be used. Is there a place where the oil main could be tapped to connect a cooler or is there an adapter available like those used on auto engines?

[BLT]

Unless you have an adequate cooling medium such as a good air flow over the cooler, it won't do you much good. Oil at best is a poor conductor and very slow to respond to cooling. Just letting hot oil radiate thru the cooler without something to take away the heat means a poor investment. Kolhler has an optional cooler on their CH series I believe and that is a plate type with a lot of fins to help dissapate the heat.

[Al]

Hi, One thing, Many of the Brs engines that have oil pumps and filters, only pump the oil through the filter and back into the crankcase and they are not "pressure oiled" engines. All of the Kohler Commands are full pressure oiled. Back in the 80s the Dixie Chopper people, who have quite inovative, devised a system to increase the life of the Briggs twins significantly. They took an electric fuel pump and took oil out of the drain outlet and pumped it through a filter and then through an oil cooler mounted flat above the flywheel (vert shaft engine) and back into the crankcase. The next thing they did was throw away the Briggs muffler that was tucked up against the sump and replaced it with a muffler with pipes about 6 inches long that got the muffler heat away from the sump. I have heard success numbers of about 3 times the life over the standard Briggs setup. With out the heat exchanger this is basically what Briggs did in many of these engines. Your think is along the right line. In 1985 or 86 when the Sun Star was announced, I was up to the factory for the occasion. Briggs, Kohler and Tecumseh had tents at the proving grounds. I asked all of them when they were going to OHVs and oil pumps, filters, and pressure oil. They all said: "People won't pay for it" I said BS Henry Ford put pressure oil in engines in 1932, this isn't rocket science. Two years later I was at the Outdoor Power Expo in Louisville and almost all of the commercial equipment had Kawasaki and Honda Pressure oil OHV, filtered engines. Alarm!!! People will pay for them. DUH! Brs and Kohler got their wake up call. When the Japanese rang their bell they decided to keep building engines they needed to quit forcing antique designs down our throats and they started to build competitive engines to get their market back. They responded and now build very high quality competitive engines. Sad to say our cars were the same way, until competition from foreign automakers forced the quality issues, Detroit didn't care about quality. They have now demonstrated they can if competition forces them. Enough of my soapbox. Al Eden

[Lawn_Slave]

It would seem that a overhead valve engine would have to have some sort of pressure oiling to move oil into the head to oil the rocker shaft to prevent galling the rockers and damaging the pushrod ends. Larry S.