I would ditch the factory cooler. That is what I have done with all the water/oil coolers that were stock on all the late model vw's that I have owned. I have found that a good efficent cooler should work really really well. I was going to use a 16 or 19 row Setrab cooler, a Mocal sandwich plate, and the hose and connecters from keith black. A 19 row cooler on my GTI VR6 dropped the oil temps from the 260 to 270 deg. range to just above 210 @ higher rpm. the 13 row cooler on the 1.8L 16V motor in my old Rabbit dropped the temps from 240-245 to 205-215. both those applications had coolers EXACTLY like the stock cooler on the contour. I say ditch the inefficent pos factory cooler. I have everything I need for the cooler kit except for the setrab cooler because I need to wait for the motor to go back in so I can see how big of a cooler I can fit in the car.

Roger


98 SVT E0, Black
Blown motor, help on the way......
97 GTI VR6, Green