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11-26-2011, 07:56 AM
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Laurel, DE
Posts: 347
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I installed the Reiff preheater system in my 6A...bands around the jugs, two oilpan heaters, and the oil cooler warmer. Gets it good and warm - even on the 17F mornings that we've had here in DE. I didn't do anything to block off my oil cooler - it runs about 150-165 in the winter. I have Van's oil cooler shutter plate - but am still thinking about it.
Ralph
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11-26-2011, 08:55 AM
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Calgary Alberta Canada
Posts: 456
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If your oil cooler is on the fire wall, get the non stop aviation control. If you don't, close off the cooler with high temp tape. My understanding is the van's control does not completely shut off the air flow. On really cold days you will want it completely closed off. It is a bit off a balancing act to find the the right amount so you you don't have to keep changing the amount. I have never modified the inlet air flow for the cylinders, but it would be nice for them to run warmer on some days. I generally regulate them by not running lop and working the engine a bit harder. They generally stay well with in the operating temps even on the coldest days.
__________________
Troy Branch
RV10 Built and Flying Since Feb 2009
950hrs Plus
CC EX-2 Flying
SuperSTOL Built and Sold
RV9 Built and Sold
Avid Aerobat Built and Sold
Dues paid Nov 2019
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11-26-2011, 12:51 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 464
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I use a heater tucker up the exhaust exit, and also a heat pad glued to the back of the superior sump. There was only enough room for one 100 watt pad there, so I added a 25 watt pad on the side of the oil cooler. Also, block off oil cooler about 60%. Two or three hours before, I call up my gsm auto and turn everything on. When i hop in and turn on the EFIS, everything is about 75 degrees.
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11-26-2011, 05:18 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Posts: 1,558
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For cold weather ops, preheat as others have said, and install a system to control oil temperature. I have the Van's oil cooler shutter connected to a push-pull cable in the cockpit. It restricts airflow a little even when fully open, so I remove it when the weather warms up in the spring. It will shut off air completely in the closed position. I am able to control my oil temp very precisely with the shutter. In the fully closed position, the oil will get very warm (200+) even on a cold day. In the full open position, I won't be able to get above 150 on a cold day, so the control function enables me to hold 180+/- on any winter day. When I move the control a little, temp change is indicated in a hurry - less than a minute. When you change altitude or power setting, you have to pay attention to the oil temp because it will change. During cruise on a cross country oil temp stays pretty stable once it's set.
__________________
SH
RV6/2001 built/sold 2005
RV8 Fastback/2008 built/sold 2015
RV4/bought 2016/sold/2017
RV8/2018 built/Sold(sadly)
RV4/bought 2019 Flying
Cincinnati, OH/KHAO
JAN2020
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11-26-2011, 05:41 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: KSLC
Posts: 4,021
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Hersha
For cold weather ops, preheat as others have said, and install a system to control oil temperature. I have the Van's oil cooler shutter connected to a push-pull cable in the cockpit. It restricts airflow a little even when fully open, so I remove it when the weather warms up in the spring.
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Have you tried it in the summer? From what I gather, the square area of the shutter openings, is at least equal to the free area of the cooler, between the cooler fins. I haven't mathematically measured it.........but it hasn't been a problem in our Utah summers which get into the 90's.
L.Adamson
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12-17-2011, 09:14 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Ely, Nevada
Posts: 223
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Comparative methods in Ely, NV
We are making a bit of a study of preheat methods in our shared hangar this year. One RV6 and one RV7A, O-360 and IO-360 respectively. and a Rotax 912-powered LSA too.
For all methods, we put a folded blanket on top of the engine cowl and plug the two forward cowl openings (with bird plugs or folded towels). Temperatures are reported in Farenheit degrees from a thermometer with a remote probe placed on top of cylinder one.
Bulb method: Using a 75 watt bulb in a drop light guard routed in the exhaust exit and placed under the engine oil pan (with the guard facing up in the unlikely instance of a fuel drip onto the bulb): In 12 hours overnight with ambient temps in hangar of 0 to 5 degrees, the engine shows a temperature of 39 to 44 degrees, and oil temps about 50. Allowing 12 additional hours, daytime, with ambient air temps (in our meatlocker of a hangar -- always 15 to 20 degrees colder than outside air) of about 20 F, the above temps rise about 10 degrees, to show 50 or so on the cylinder probe and 60 on the oil. Conclusion: This method works, but takes overnight. Stable temperature is reached within 12 hours; ambient temperatures seem to control after that. Might need to switch to a 100 watt bulb as local temperatures drop into winter.
Heater method: We also evaluated a 1000/1500 watt "bathroom heater" and dryer duct, like that shown in the November issue of Sport Aviation, http://www.sportaviationonline.org/s...ion/201111#pg1. The specific heater we used was smaller and cheaper ($18) to buy than the one in the article. A $5 galvanized 5 inch to 4 inch adaptor was split into 4 "legs," which were then flattened in a vice and trimmed to fit the front of the heater, and attached with 2 PK screws to the face of the unit. The heater sits on the hangar floor on airplane centerline, about 3 feet behind the exhaust exit in the cowl. Ducting provided with an all metal FLEXIBLE clothes dryer duct, made oval at the delivery end. (Flexible ducting allows us to use the heater on different planes.) This obtained somewhat better results: In 90 minutes, from an ambient hangar temperature of 20 to 25 degrees and using the low (1500 watt setting), the oil temps are up to 45 or 50, so, call it a 25 degree rise. 25 degrees in 90 minutes is not bad, gets the temps into a good range, and can be done on the morning of the flight instead of overnight. In the other extreme, in an early test, I ran that same heater at 1500 watts for 12 hours overnight when hangar temps were 25 overnight (earlier in the cold season). In the morning, the oil temps were 91 degrees and cylinder probe was 102, roughly a 65 to 70 degree rise. Much more than needed, we thought, since the goal is to get oil temperature and CHT at least above freezing and, ideally, to 40 or so. So, based on these results, our practice is to use 1000 watt setting for the overnight preheat and the 1500 watt setting for the quicker, same day preheating.
Of possible interest to RV-12 flyers, a SkyRanger owner in our hangar, uses the blown air heater on his Rotax 912 with good results too. He has not tried overnight heating yet. Instead, he heavily bundles up his engine cowl on the top and sides, with the heater duct into one large front opening, gets a 30 to 35 degree rise in CHT in only 90 minutes. The oil (separate tank, not a bottom sump, of course) is warmed a similar amount, too.
One other consideration that works for us. The bulb method is super simple, and can be set up and left off at the end of a flight. The pilot, who lives 60 miles away, can call for a "plug in" the day before he intends to fly. Not inconvenient for since the hangar is visited by one of us every day and, with the blankets and bulb fixture in place, its a simple dela to plug in the cord. Setting up the heater and duct would be a bit more of a job.
__________________
Mike Coster
BUILDER: N92MB RV7A (A/W 3/2009) - Sold
ADOPTED/reworked: N4032Q RV8A (8/2017)
Building: S-21 Outback/Titan, tail and cockpit mated (3/2020)
KELY/Ely, NV
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12-17-2011, 11:24 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Peshtigo, Wisconsin
Posts: 768
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My 2 cents worth.....
I use a small ceramic heater, set up with flexible ducting as mentioned above. Three blankets over the cowl as well as two water heater blankets, slightly overlapped on the top of the cowl so that they can be brought together and clamped under the owl, thus covering the whole cowl, more or less.
I plug my heated intro a thermostat designed for heating tape to keep water pipes from freezing. That rests on top of the engine, being insered in the cowl through the air inlets. I run this 24/7 all winter and it keeps the inerior of the cowl heated to 40-45F all winter. Average cost to run it is approximately less than $10.00/ month.
What I like is not only does it make for a happier engine on startup, but it also prevents the battery from freezing. No issue with moisture condensation either, as everything under the cowl is the same temp. The heater runs for about a minute or so each time it kicks in.
As I said, my 2 cents worth. Has been working for me for the last 5 years without a hiccup.
__________________
Jeff Orear
RV6A N782P
Peshtigo, WI
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12-17-2011, 11:47 AM
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Bismarck, ND
Posts: 212
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cowl openings
I don't live in quebec, but ND. I plan to put a butterfly in my 4" oil cooler duct for oil temp control.
Many of you have replied with real good preheat info, but doesn't anyone restrict cowl inlet air? It seems like it would be difficult to get reasonable chts with full cowling air flow.
__________________
Larry Buller
RV7A slow build, Tip up, IO360 200hp, Catto 3 blade, Dynon Skyview, arinc 429, ems, SV transponder, Garmin GNS430w, Aera 560, Dynon D6.
FLYING!
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12-17-2011, 02:06 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Victoria, BC, Canada
Posts: 3,932
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It seems like there's a wide variation in the type of oil cooler people are using, and it's mounting location and and the routing of air to it. It makes it hard to correlate "I close mine off 60%" with "I close mine off completely".
Mine is a large Positech, firewall mounted, and fed by a 3" scat tube from a hole in the rear baffle on the passenger side. In winter months, the scat tube is closed off except for a slit that's about 1/4" by 1.5" on the top edge. Even with that, my oil temps are barely into the green. In the summer, I open it a little further, to get about a 1/2" by 2" opening, and the oil temps sit in the same place.
I'm planning on installing a Van's shutter this spring, that i'll access from the oil filler door. I don't think it's worth having a cable into the cockpit, this is more something I'll want to set once per flight at most (and more likely, once per season). It might even be worth looking into putting in a smaller oil cooler.
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Rob Prior
1996 RV-6 "Tweety" C-FRBP (formerly N196RV)
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12-17-2011, 04:39 PM
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Moose Jaw, SK, Canada
Posts: 550
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My first winter as a 6 pilot as well, out here on the (usually) frozen prairie. I started the winter with my oil cooler opening (cooler is firewall mounted) taped over with foil tape, but I'm not satisfied with that solution; we've had a lot of above freezing days so far this winter, and the oil temps run over 200 in those circumstances (up to 220 today!). I have the nonstop aviation butterfly sitting on the bench; might go in tomorrow.
For preheat, I am using a variation on the "heater with flexible duct" theme; a 1500 W utility heater with flexible ducting foil taped (I am not a metal fabricator lol) to both inlet and outlet sides. I run a circuit; outlet into the exhaust opening, intlet from one of the cooling openings on the front of the cowl, with the other cooling opening plugged. Couple of hours heat on a -10-15 C morning (around 5-15 F) and my CHT's and oil are all around 70-80 F. Today I reversed the ducting (heat into the cooling opening, out from the exhaust) with the result that the cht's were more 90-100 and the oil in the 60's. Either way, I think returning the heated air back through the heater rather than continually heating ambient temperature air improves the efficiency quite a bit. I got the idea from the design of the Aerotherm heater, and it works very well. Of note; the heater has a thermostat which I leave about 2/3 of the way up; if it's been turned on for more than a couple of hours, it's usually cycling on only briefly and shutting off again by the time I get to the hangar. If I turned the thermostat down further, I could pretty much leave it on all the time and have the temps in a very reasonable range all the time. I don't need to do that, however, as my hangar partner lets me use his aerotherm cell-phone activated switch system; I fire a text off and turn the heater on while I'm still in bed, and by the time I get up and get to the hangar, the plane is warm and ready to go. Love that thing
As for restricting cooling air to the cylinders, I haven't felt any need to do that; I've flown at about -15C (5 F) and my CHT's remained right at or a bit above 300. I don't intend to fly at much colder temps than that, so I'm satisfied with those numbers.
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Gerry Julian
Moose Jaw Saskatchewan
RV6A "Second Wind" C-GERZ (born N242UL)
O-360 A1A, Sensenich FP prop
Those who think any system is foolproof greatly underestimate the ingenuity of fools
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