Back To Blueprint | BulletProof 6.4 Oil Cooler Swap

Ford builds a great Super-Duty chassis. That is a backhanded way of saying that the Navistar-built 6.0L and 6.4L Power Stroke diesel engines that Ford sourced sometimes have a few issues. The 6.4-liter is a big improvement over the 6.0-liter, but that’s like saying a buffalo is skinnier than an elephant.

Thankfully, the aftermarket has stepped up and devised a number of fixes for both of these troubled powerplants, making them run the way the factory hoped they would in the first place.

In the case of the 6.4, the factory oil cooler is a trouble spot. The factory design is a pretty clever oil-to-water cooler. The cooler has stacked plates, and each plate alternates between flowing water and flowing oil. The fluid passages are kept separate, so oil and water never directly meet each other. Instead, heat from the oil is transferred into the water, which then circulates through the radiator. A better term for this oil-to-water cooler might be “heat exchanger”.

01. Here’s the BulletProof Diesel filter adapter next to the factory filter housing. The upper part of the cartridge filter housing will be removed, and the BulletProof remote filter adapter will go in its place.

01. Here’s the BulletProof Diesel filter adapter next to the factory filter housing. The upper part of the cartridge filter housing will be removed, and the BulletProof remote filter adapter will go in its place.

All is usually well when the 6.4-liter’s oil cooler leaves the dealer lot. Miles later, however, the water passages within the cooler/heat exchanger often clog. This means the heat from the oil can’t transfer into the water. Overly hot oil can’t protect engine parts as well as that which runs at the proper temperature.

As we’ve seen many times before, BulletProof Diesel comes to the Power Stroke’s rescue with an innovative solution.

02. The Fluidyne oil-to-air cooler gets bolted to the custom BulletProof bracket. This installation is all wrenching. You can leave the metal fabrication for another project.

02. The Fluidyne oil-to-air cooler gets bolted to the custom BulletProof bracket. This in

BulletProof’s 6.4 oil cooler kit places an additional oil cooler in-line with the factory cooler. The BulletProof cooler (made by Fluidyne) uses oil-to-air heat transfer, so your oil temperature is never tied into your coolant temperature. If your factory oil cooler is working properly, the BulletProof oil cooler kit will give you that much greater cooling capacity. If your factory oil cooler’s water passages are clogged, the BulletProof oil cooler kit will restore your oil system’s cooling capacity back to the factory blueprint specs.

There’s another benefit to this kit. In place of the factory cartridge filter, the BulletProof kit uses a remote-mounted spin-on filter. The spin-on filter is a foolproof design, that’s easy to change. By contrast, the factory cartridge design is prone to having the drain valve stick open, especially when aftermarket filter cartridges and cover caps are used. When the drain valve sticks open, very little oil is forced through the filter, and the engine oil pressure drops dramatically.

Get your 6.5L Power Stroke back to blueprint with BulletProof Diesel.