I have the cooler mounted up under the steering head. Yes, right in front of the head. Does it effect air flow to the head, probably.
I have mine set up to get oil from the pump and feeds it back into the side cover oil filter cavity. In setting it up I had questions on effectiveness.
I rigged up a car temp gauge with a 3/4 inch tee fitting and some barb fittings. After I got all the case fittings installed I plumbed in just the tee fitting to get a base line temp. On a 60 mile loop on a 75 degree day the oil temp settled in at about 200 degrees. At the garage it used a non contact thermometer to check head and cylinder temps. They ran about the same at 280 degrees. I then plumbed in an external oil filter, thinking the extra oil and the filter hanging out in the air would help keep things cooler. I kept the temp sensor in the oil return line as close to engine as I could.
On the second 60 mile loop the oil temp dropped about 5 degrees, cylinder and head about 25 degrees.
At the garage I plumbed in the cooler. The oil flowed out of the engine to the filter to the cooler and back to the engine past the temp sensor. On that 60 mile loop the oil dropped 45 degrees, the head and cylinders dropped another 25 degrees.
The oil filter hung down off the front engine mount, cooler up under the head. Even with the cooler blocking the head and the filter blocking the case, the cylinder and head temps dropped significantly. Any blockage of air flow to the heads was more than made up for by having the cooler.