Beaumont Cooler Bypass Valve and Block Adapter
 

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After cooking up some drag strip inspired blown engine goulash under the hood of my Superformance Cobra in the summer of 2007, I was forced to do a complete engine build. Considering the violent nature of the engine grenading, I also needed to consider the debris which made its' way into the car's existing remote oiling system. Based upon recommendations from the local Ford Motorsport engine building gurus, I knew that if I was essentially going to have to redo the whole remote oiling system, it was ALL going to be reassembled with the bigger AN12 size lines and fittings instead of the stock AN10 system.

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Another personal consideration in this rebuild comes from the fact that I live in Michigan and I often drive the Cobra right up until the snow flies. Past driving experience in the cold morning air told me that my engine oils' running temperatures hardly ever exceeded 60 degrees C during regular city driving. So to help with this, I wanted to include an oil cooler bypass valve, so that I could easily stop the lubricant flow through the oil cooler if need be. There are a few "name brand" oil cooling system bypass valves and AN12 sized remote oil filter block adapters available on the market. But, having seen some of the wonderful automotive products that Beaumont Metal Works has created; when I heard that they were producing an AN12 sized block adaptor and complimenting remote filter/cooler bypass valve, I thought that I would give them a try.

Remote Filter/Cooler Bypass Valve Assembly
At first glance, the Beaumont valve comes across as a carefully thought out and well built design. Beefy is not a strong enough term to describe its’ heft and obviously very durable construction. Even though the whole valve assembly feels like it could survive a direct nuclear strike, the valve actuator lever on top of the bypass assembly is very easy to articulate. The lever has click-stop detents along its arc of motion that can be heard when the engine is off and felt in the hand that is articulating the valve, even when the motor is running. The valve face is also graduated from 0 to 100% to give the operator a clear understanding of exactly how much oil is flowing through the cooler with a simple glance. The oil flow level is very tunable for just about any conceivable need. Turning the entire value assembly over to view the filter-mounting portion reveals more of the genius built into the Beaumont design.

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On the bottom side of Beaumont bypass valve, one of the first things noticed is the depth of the flow-cup surrounding the filter stud. This area underneath where the filter body will be attached is very open and obviously machined for superior oil flow when compared to some of the other brands of remote filter housings.

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This flow-conscious cup, as well as the uniquely contoured opening in the valve body that feeds it, helps to ensure very little pressure loss and the maximum volume of oil flow into the filter itself. The Beaumont valve body also includes a threaded port where one can easily mount an oil temperature gauge probe. This probe location keeps the temperature gauge sensor in the oil flow whether the cooler is being used or bypassed. A standard ½” NPT plug would be used in this port when not needed.

The Beaumont Remote Filter/Bypass Valve was designed to be a direct replacement part for the stock Superformance/Canton remote filter body. The simplicity of the Beaumont design also makes it easily adaptable to other make Cobra replicas as well as any other high performance vehicle that is running a remote filter and oil cooler. For anyone currently running the Canton remote filter, installing the Beaumont assembly should be a quick and easy replacement. The Beaumont valve can also be mounted vertically and even upside down if the location warrants it. In my particular project, I intended to put the Beaumont valve in the same place where the previous Canton remote filter fixture was.
The new bypass valve would have functioned fine if I had just bolted it up as it was intended to be. But, one thing that did concern me a little bit was how close the valve body came to the March aluminum water pump pulley on my Big Block. I wanted to make sure that I could easily and safely operate the cooler shutoff valve "on the fly", with the motor still running. To accomplish this, I constructed a simple 1/4" aluminum spacer out of 2 small pieces of 1/8" flat stock that I had. The spacer was mounted between the Beaumont supplied mounting bracket and the mounting tab which is welded to the car frame cross member. This slight modification moved the valve body forward enough to allow me to adjust the oil flow through the cooler even while the car is just stopped for a traffic light. It’s that quick and simple!

Remote Oil Filter Block Adapter
The Beaumont engine block adapter is no less of a hydrodynamic work of art. It is machined with some of the very same smooth and well-blended contours that the remote filter/bypass valve assembly has. When compared to the stock Superformance/Canton remote adapter that was removed from my blown engine, the Beaumont block adapter's inner "cup", where the oil flows out of the engine block and is diverted to the remote filter/bypass valve, is much more open to flow. The Beaumont adapter looks as if it will outflow ANY comparable piece built for this purpose.

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Of course, because the Beaumont remote adapter is made to accept AN12 fittings, it is a bit taller than the typical AN10 sized ones. But, even with a Big Block 385 Series Ford engine under the hood, the added adapter height caused no problems during the installation process. In fact, during my own personal installation, I simply used a big 1-1/4" socket attached to about 18" worth of straight extensions, so the socket wrench itself was free to be turned outside and below the body of the car.
Since it is best to pre-attach the AN12 lines to the block adapter before mounting, during installation, the only minor difference with how the Beaumont block adapter attached to the engine itself was due to the inherent stiffness of the bigger AN 12 lines when compared to the AN 10 types. To compensate for this stiffness factor, it helps to fully tighten the block adapter to the engine block's oil filter boss before attaching the ends of the connecting oil lines to the Remote Filter/Bypass Valve. This allows the remote adapter to be mounted squarely on the block-face and it also reduces the possibility of cross-threading it on the filter boss.
While using both the Beaumont Remote Filter/Bypass Valve along with their proprietary Remote Filter Block Adapter will give the user the ultimate in oil flow and cooling control, I know fellow Cobra owners who saw approximately 10 PSI pressure increases in their motors with JUST the addition of Beaumont’s Block Adapter to their existing AN10 setups! This is easily done by using the readily available AN12 to AN10 reducer fittings on the block adapter in lieu of the straight AN12 ones. The Beaumont adapter IS a functional work of art!

For the oil cooler itself, since I had just improved the flow characteristics of the rest of the remote oiling system, it only made sense for me to go 100% and also replace the Mocal AN10 sized cooler which my Superformance originally came with. To make things simple, I decided to go with a similarly sized Setrab Series 6 Model 613-4064 cooler, which can accommodate fittings up to AN16 size. The fitting of this cooler into the existing aluminum cooler shroud did require a little bit of cutting burr use to open up the holes where the larger AN12 fittings come through it. But besides that, this new cooler was a very simple swap. If one decided to not go quite this far and retain the stock AN10 sized cooler, AN12 to AN10 reducer adaptors could be used right at the old cooler to mate everything together, but I am sure that some oil flow volume and pressure would be sacrificed.

The oil pump used in my new engine build was a Melling M-84DHV , standard pressure/high volume pump for the Ford 385 Series engines. This pump should provide ample volumes of oil with plenty of pressure for mostly street, and occasional track/strip use.

With everything mounted, all the hoses cut to length and their respective fittings mounted and tightened down, it was time to fire up the beast and see if the payoff was worth the effort. Before starting the motor, it is advisable to prime the new remote system by removing the distributor and hooking a drill directly to the oil pump drive shaft. This will pre-fill all the new lines, valve and cooler bodies with oil and ensure good lubrication from the moment the motor starts.
When the big 520 cubic inch stroker came to life, the oil pressure needle shot up to readings that had NEVER been seen before. Previous to all the changes, the gauge in my car never read even cold oil pressures that went past about 58PSI. Here I was staring at a gauge that initially shot up to almost 70PSI and in a minute, when the oil was still cold but flowing better, I saw about 74 PSI on the gauge! SUCCESS!

It’s obvious that the Beaumont oil system upgrades made significant changes in the oil flow and pressure available in my particular application, but I wanted to try and quantify the results to some degree and to answer a few other questions that some have had regarding whether a cooler was necessary or a detriment to oil flow in general. Here is some cold start data and some cruising-speed data that was compiled to try and see if there was any pressure difference whether bypassing or running through the cooler, and what affect different levels of bypassing the cooler had on oil operating temperatures overall.

Cobra Cold Start; February 8:
Outside Temperature: 27 degrees F
Oil: 10W40 Valvoline
Cooler 100% Bypassed
Engine RPM: 1800-2000
Initial Startup Pressure: 72 PSI
Initial Pressure at Idle (2 minutes running): 70PSI
Idle Oil Pressure After 17 minutes (hot oil): 28 PSI

Run Time/ Water Temp/ Oil Temp/ Oil Pressure
4 min/ 65C/ 40C/ 70PSI
7 min/ 92C/ 41C/ 62 PSI
10 min/ 95C/ 80C/ 57 PSI
15 min/ 97C/ 94C/ 48 PSI
17 min/ 97C/ 95C/ 48 PSI


Cobra Cold Start; March 27
Outside Temperature: 38 degrees F
Oil: SAE 30 Brad Penz
Cooler 100% in use (to begin with)
Engine RPM: 1800-2000
Initial Startup Pressure: 73 PSI
Initial Pressure at Idle (2 minutes running): 70 PSI
Run Time/ Water Temp/ Oil Temp/ Oil Pressure With Cooler/ Oil Pressure No Cooler
4 min/ 50C/ 40C/ 62PSI ---------
6 min/ 65C/ 41C/ 62PSI/ ---------
8 min/ 80C/ 48C/ 62PSI/ 62PSI
10 min/ 92C/ 50C/ 61PSI/ 61PSI
12 min/ 97C/ 94C/ 48PSI/ 48PSI
14 min/ 97C/ 95C/ 48PSI/ 48PSI
17 min/ 97C/ 94C/ 48PSI/ 48PSI
22 min/ 97C/ 94C/ 48PSI/ 48PSI


Cruising Data:
Outside Temperature: 65 degrees F
Cruising speeds 45-70mph; 2000-2400 RPMs; combination of city and highway types of roads.
All temperatures listed below are in Celsius.
Water Temperature Operating Range: 75 C to 95 C
1. Cooler Valve 100% Open: Oil temperature runs approximately 5-7degrees cooler than the water temperature.
2. Cooler Valve 50% Open: Oil temperature runs approximately 5-7degrees hotter than water temperature (approximately 5 deg. in the lower temperature ranges, approximately 7 deg. in the higher temperature ranges).
3. Cooler Valve Fully Closed: Oil temperature runs approximately 10 degrees hotter than water temperature in all temperature ranges.
4. Cooler Valve Open @ 75%: Oil temperature runs approximately equal with the water temperature in all temperature ranges.


Conclusions
The Beaumont Metal Works Oil Cooler Bypass Valve/Remote Filter assembly is an extremely high quality, ingeniously designed product that offers the user an almost infinite amount of variability with the flow of engine oil through a remote cooler. The ease of use and durable design of the product makes it especially indispensable to those that live in areas where seasonal temperature changes can prevent the motor oil from getting up to the temperatures where it will perform properly. The Beaumont Remote Oil Filter Block Adapter is another very well built, superbly designed product that is almost unmatched when compared to similar products from other manufacturers. While the block adapter itself has proven to be the pinnacle in design for achieving the maximum amount of oil flow to a remote filter assembly, when it is used in conjunction with the Beaumont Remote Filter/Bypass Valve, the user has the best lubrication system available to protect the substantial investment that High-Performance/Race engines can be. When combined, these two products offer high reliability and great peace of mind, no matter how extreme the application may be. I have been running these components in my own Superformance Cobra for over 3 years now, and I am so confident in their use, I often wonder what I EVER did without them! Do yourself a favor and contact Beaumont Metal Works so you can see for yourself what a difference their products can make. You’ll soon be wondering what you ever did without them too!

Beaumont Metal Works, Manufacturer of Industrial belt grinders and finishing equipment
Beaumont Metal Works, Manufacturer of Industrial belt grinders and finishing equipment

Beaumont Metal Works, Inc.
1473 Showcase Dr.
Columbus, Ohio 43212
Phone: (614) 291-8876 (9-5 EST M-F)


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Very good information, especially the temperature/pressure data. I'm almost inspired enough to go install my Beaumont valve and block adapter!

Thanks CWizard...
It's getting to be that time of year when the bypass REALLY becomes usefull... Spring is another time, so if you don't get it done before too long, this is a good winter project for sure!

I drove #131 to work this morning and the temp outside was @50-55 degrees. I just slow the flow of oil down through the cooler and it heats up nicely! Right now, it's about 70-75 degrees outside, so when I go grab some lunch, I'll open the cooler flow back up a bit (I usually run at about 75% flow through the cooler when it's "comfortable" but not "Africa-hot" outside)... At this setting the oil temp runs right with the water temp....

It's an awesome system...

It sure is nice having a the bypass value when the wether cools down...

I have run the Beaumont system on my SPF for several years now, and recommend the system to any Cobra owner that runs his Cobra hard, or runs in cold weather. I do both, so it is a perfect fit for me!

I have run my SPF year-round in upstate NY, in temps as low as -10f. In the past, I used cardboard to block my oil cooler, and partially blocked the radiator in those temps to get the oil up to temp. Now I close the valve (shut off the oil cooler) in super low temps, and change the setting as needed for the rest of the year. Super easy to do as I mounted it on the crossmember directly in front of the engine.

I also changed to a larger cooler (from Olthoff racing) and changed the whole system out to AN12 lines.

A highly recommended upgrade.
Jim Kellogg

Jim is THE hardest-core Cobra driver on the planet! That's a great testimonial...
I'm not as brave as Jim as I usually just drive until the snow flies here in MI., then I tuck my baby away. But, having the valve actually allows me to see +80 degrees C on the oil temp gauge on those cold morning startups.

I have gone to the AN-12 lines and a bigger Setrab cooler too Jim, and the Beaumont valve and block adaptor assembly REALLY made a HUGE difference in the effectivity of both of those upgrades.

I have the 12 A/N cooler from Olthoff racing with the 12 A/N lines that was feeding through a # 10 Canton A/N filter adapter. When I found out that Beaumont Metals was making a # 12 adapter I jumped on it right away to achieve much better oil flow.
It's a work of art but a very cumbersome job to intall in a 351 W as the clearances are very thin. I used a old ford wrench and cut of part of the handle to get to the nut as nothing else in the garage would fit the tight area. ALSO the 12 a/n connectors are PORT connectors using O rings that mount onto the adaptor so be sure to order two of these as well. I didn't get the bi-pass valve because it's always sunny in California. ;)

Glenn