Radiator & Oil Cooler

Its well understood the need to upgrade the stock intercooler. But at what level of modification or horsepower level does it become necessary to upgrade the radiator and add an oil cooler?

A bigger radiator 1 would want in a hot climate like the South West .
Oil coolers are preferred for the same and for tracking the vehicle or even towing .
These are good modifications if you speed a lot .

17Stallion said:

Its well understood the need to upgrade the stock intercooler. But at what level of modification or horsepower level does it become necessary to upgrade the radiator and add an oil cooler?

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The factory performance pack includes a larger radiator, which allows you to track the car. It also deletes the 120 mph limiter. Ford has testing grounds in AZ, so presumably the stock radiator is adequate even in those climates if you don't intend to track the car. If you plan to track the car you'll need to delete the speed limiter, so I would definitely upgrade the radiator.

The car does not come from the factory with an oil cooler, even on the performance pack cars, so it's reasonable to assume factory testing showed one is unnecessary. Many people add them as a prophylactic, but if you do be aware you are adding failure points (hoses, connectors, the heat exchanger, etc.) and weight to the car. If I were going to track my car I'd like to be sure the juice was worth the squeeze, so to speak, so I would collect some real world data to see if oil temps/pressures warranted a cooler. Synthetic oils can hold up under extreme temps, but high oil temp can reduce oil pressure. I'd like to know that the engine is maintaining minimum oil pressure at the expected operating temps. If temps get high enough to significantly affect pressure I 'd think about a cooler. Otherwise, I'd just change the oil after the race.

If you are planning to track your car you should.

I did very very thorough testing on my pprevios car and ended up running dual 25 row oil coolers in the fog light areas.

However I do drive hard and go all out on slicks. The lower you can keep your oil temps and cooling temps the better off you’ll be.

TorqueMan said:

The factory performance pack includes a larger radiator, which allows you to track the car. It also deletes the 120 mph limiter. Ford has testing grounds in AZ, so presumably the stock radiator is adequate even in those climates if you don't intend to track the car. If you plan to track the car you'll need to delete the speed limiter, so I would definitely upgrade the radiator.

The car does not come from the factory with an oil cooler, even on the peformance pack cars, so it's reasonable to assume factory testing showed one is unnecessary. Many people add them as a prophylactic, but if you do be aware you are adding failure points (hoses, connectors, the heat exchanger, etc.) and weight to the car. If I were going to track my car I'd like to be sure the juice was worth the squeeze, so to speak, so I would collect some real world data to see if oil temps/pressures warranted a cooler. Synthetic oils can hold up under extreme temps, but high oil temp can reduce oil pressure. I'd like to know that the engine is maintaining minimum oil pressure at the exected operating temps. If temps get high enough to significantly affect pressureI 'd think about a cooler. Otherwise, I'd just change the oil after the race.

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About the limiter. Is that a parameter of the stock tune? Im suddenly alarmed bc im doing road america in a month and that would hamper me and be rather embarrassing on the straights. Im on the FP tune

Dirty-EB-Chicago said:

About the limiter. Is that a parameter of the stock tune? Im suddenly alarmed bc im doing road america in a month and that would hamper me and be rather embarrassing on the straights. Im on the FP tune

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I don't know if that parameter is one that's edited by the FP tune. I don't think it is, mainly because of the possibility of overheat (and all the associated Ecoboom-related dangers that go along with it) if you don't have the larger radiator, but to confirm you should contact Ford Performance. My two cents is you don't want to turn the limiter off unless you have the upgraded cooling system, especially if you plan to drive extended periods above the limited speeds in the summer.

Thanks everybody for all of the info