In line solenoid valve for oil cooler

Hi Everyone, as above my car has had an aftermarket oil cooler fitted with a thermosatic take off plate, which works well when driven hard. Only issue is the thermostat must start opening early because with normal day to day driving the oil is too cold. I was wondering if I could use a valve controlled by the my link ecu to block off the oil cooler when not need? I've seen plenty 12v solenoid valves that look like they would do the job but just wondering if anyone had 1st hand experience of anything specific.

Thanks David

Hi David as long as its not cutting flow to the oil system then i see no issue with what you are doing at all

Hi Ross, Thanks for the reply.

The current setup uses a sandwich plate between the block and filter which has a thermostatic valve in to regulate the flow of oil around the cooler. This stat does work but it must start opening up quite early and means it's overcooling everything when driving day to day. My thought was adding another electronically controlled valve in series was to get around this. The themostat would still regulate flow round the cooler but I may even just set the solenoid on a DI in the link or simply connect it to the same DI that activates my high boost setting. In my head I couldn't see a problem with it but I just wanted someone elses opinion to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

issue for me is you need a bypass valve for if the solenoid was to fail closed.

you could have a smaller bypass line parallel too the cooler and assume this flows a negligible amount when solenoid is open but reality it a suspect a large amount of oil would bypass the cooler.

Are you sure the thermostat is actually working, and not stuck open? On that, what is your oil temperature that seems too cold, and where/how are you measuring it?

I would be VERY wary of adding any sort of manual valve - especially as most thermostats have a transition from all bypassing the cooler to ALL through the cooler, and a bodge install may mean NO oil, or insufficient, actually getting to the engine. You would be better off, if you must, fitting some sort of blanking sheet/plate that can be pulled over the cooler matrix when not needed.