LS3 oil cooler yes/no?

[chucknorris]

After a quick chat with the factory, I am not sure if I need to bother with an oil cooler or not.
The kit they supply is for an LS7 as it's needed but they say that in their experience i don't really need it for a standard 435bhp LS3.
They did suggest asking the question here to see what others have done as they can only supply the cooler matrix as they don't do a pipework kit to fit it to the engine.
Lastly I reckon I'll take the engine to a max of about 550bhp fairly soon after IVA and this may mean a cooler is recommended, in that case what have others fitted?
Cheers

Pete

[chucknorris]

I was kind of thinking along the same lines Mark... Easier to fit now than later sort of thing.
Have you bought some kind of kit to fit it all, or did you just buy all the parts seperately?

[chucknorris]

Thanks for all the replies, i think i've got the answers i needed...although it sounds like the higher temps are common with the LS3 and perfectly fine, there's a big difference between 140deg and 80deg so I think I'm going to go with the belt and braces approach and fit one. The oil to water looks like a simple enough way to go so I'm definitely going to have a closer look into that.
cheers
Pete

[chucknorris]

Would you really need a thermostat? I could be wrong, but my guess is that the oil wouldn't be able to get that cool (depending on what temp you're talking about of course) because the water temperature wouldn't be able to cool the oil that much (from everything i've read regards the water temp, it's a struggle to keep it down in an Ultima).
If i'm wrong about that, i stand corrected because it's all guesswork until i get the car finished

[chucknorris]

Hi Barrie,

I have had this exact conversation (once again) with a couple of other owners this week, and our unanimous decision is that for a 430-550bhp LS3 Ultima an oil cooler is not needed, and especially if you are not planning to do any track days. Also the factory confirmed that it wasn't worth fitting one for that type of power.
If that doesn't help...I was the one that started this thread and asked the question 4 years ago, the car is being IVA'd in 2 weeks and there's no oil cooler fitted. Not only that, my plan is to fit a cam over the next winter to give me around 550bhp and i'm still not planning to fit a cooler.
I hope that helps

Pete

[chucknorris]

But of course the LS3 doesn't have a dry sump as standard, that's the LS7.
There is a guy on here who races off road vehicles (and is also building a GTR) and he uses LS3's in his off roaders. He says that those engines really get put through their paces in more ways than our cars will, but he's still never felt the need to fit an oil cooler to any of them.