Originally Posted by wstar

It works because the radiator can shed a lot more heat than it's usually asked to (it has a lot more fins/rows/surface than even a 34-row oil cooler does), and the oil gets hotter than the water does. The problem isn't that oil<->water cooling doesn't work, the problem is just that the 2012 OEM sandwichplate cooler is too small and inefficient to get the job done.

AM Perf was running a custom oil<->water unit combined with an upgraded radiator in longer competition runs, seems like it worked for them. It's probably the better and cleaner solution in general. It will warm up oil faster, the oil lines are shorter and safer (oil<->water unit inside the engine bay, behind the radiator), less bulk/weight out at the tip of the car, etc.

I think Travis has been trying out some Laminova units: complete-oil-coolers-ec54 - oil-coolers - The Laminova heat exchangers - Laminova, but he's been focused on other issues lately. I really think with the right Laminova and an upgraded (e.g. CSF) radiator, you shouldn't need to run an extra Setrab core out front except perhaps in the most extreme of conditions (long races in the desert? I donno).