Comment

Comment by John Flavin on March 4, 2012 at 9:16pm

Terry:  I'm guessing about the 40% opening being enough in summer--only time will tell. But it will be easy to remove if I need to. The slide mechanism is definitely a good choice for staying where you put it without having to create a friction lock, and it gives better control over air flow than a flapper valve.   

The 1.5 hours is flight time on the whole plane.  Made the first flight myself about a month ago.  Too windy around here to do any flying since then, at least on weekends when I'm available.  

Comment by Terry Hagel on February 28, 2012 at 12:30am

John - Now you have me thinking.  I think I will make a air flow control for my oil cooler.  I'm going to have to ponder it for awhile.  I was thinking of a butterfly valve - - however, that would probable require a friction lock control to keep it in position.  I can see the advantage of the type of system you've got where it would tend to stay at the setting you place the control.

 

It is interesting that the oil cooler is so effective that it will do the job with only 40% of the air flow.  I don't know what to make of that.

 

I will move ahead with completing my radiator cooling mods and get started on my instruments while I think about this.

 

Do you have 1.5 hours on the cooling mod part or on the plane?  Did you do the first flight yourself?

Comment by John Flavin on February 27, 2012 at 9:07pm

Terry:  The oil cooler shutter is a custom lash-up fabricated from leftover .016 sheet aluminum stock.  The holes are placed so that exposed radiator surface goes from roughly 40% max to fully blocked.   It needs to be fully blocked to let the engine oil warm up in any reasonable time when the ambient temp is below 50 or so.  I've got only 1.5 hours of actual flight time on it so far, but flew that in 40 degree F temps with the shutter mostly closed and oil temps stayed at 190.   Don't know what to expect during the summer at high density altitudes, but I suspect 40% open will be enough.  If not, I'll just take it off in late spring.

I also found that the radiator inset in the bottom cowl wasn't centered very well, but it was close enough to use without reworking the whole thing.  I'll try to scrounge up a photo...

Comment by Terry Hagel on February 27, 2012 at 7:55pm

John

I am working on my cowling now and also find the oil cooler ducting needed quite a bit of fiberglass work to get it functional.  I put a couple pictures of what I did on a recent cowling question on the 701 forum if you want to see what I did.  However, it was during that discussion that I first thought about the oil cooler getting to cool.  I then saw the picture of the system you have for blocking the air flow.  Looks like a pretty good system.  Did you build the part in front of the cooler or did you find something that would work?  How much flow of the air do you block?

 

I would think in real cold weather one might have to fly with the cooler partially blocked.  However, I have not read any discussions about that, have you?

 

I am also changing the cowling hole in the front for the radiator.  I found it did not align very good and not all of the radiator was exposed to the air flow.  Did you encounter that problem?

 

Is your plane flying now? 

 

Lots of questions. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

Terry