A common point of contention with any E36 ownership is the balance between performance and heat. By nature, this compact, lightweight, powerful, RWD car is pretty much designed to be driven hard. With an extremely well balanced chassis, a 6cyl engine, and millions of aftermarket parts available, the E36 is quickly becoming the go-to car to pick up cheap and drive fast. Because of this, many sub $5000 BMW 3-series from this generation will find themselves on a race track from time to time, and that opens up one of two chinks in its temper-hardened track battle armor. That is cooling capacity (the other is chassis rigidity, which can be addressed with reinforcement kits).
The eEuroparts E36 Oil Cooler Kit
With a small, relatively aerodynamic front end and lightweight components, the M50 series E36 cars can get real hot real fast, causing all manners of failures from cracked radiator end tanks, to blown hose fittings. If you are submitting your BMW to foot-down driving in hot weather, then I’m sure you have been at the point to notice the temp gauge rise. That’s where this new E36 oil cooler kit comes in, at an amazing price point for what you get.
In Europe, the M3 received a stock OEM oil cooler kit that ran off of the oil filter housing. For some reason, we never had this option in the US (although some Z3’s got a similar treatment). eEuroparts.com now has a plug and play kit, using many high quality OEM parts that we have sourced in Original BMW from Europe. This includes the oil filter housing, lines, seals, and mounting brackets. The oil cooler is the OES Laengerer & Reich unit, which is a name brand that has an incredible history for designing and building performance cooling solutions. One of which is the famous Group-A Volvo intercooler.
Due to other differences in the US model M50 family cars, additional steps needed to be taken in order to make this kit truly plug-and-play. In the European model, the oil cooler simply bolts up to the bottom of the M3 radiator. The US spec radiator lacks the stock brackets to make this possible, so we have made our own out of billet aluminum. Additionally, due to differences in the banjo fitting size on the US spec VANOS oil line, and the Euro spec oil filter housing, we have also included a custom banjo bolt to adapt the 14mm line to the 12mm fitting on the housing.
So if you are getting ready to subject your car to track use, this E36 oil cooler kit is a vital component to the reliability of your engine. To cap it all off, if you can, we suggest pairing this with Evans Waterless Coolant as well as a metal impeller water pump. It’s insurance that could save you a ton in the long run. Use the photos below for proper orientation of the brackets. Radiator is NOT included, this is just a demonstration.
