IO360 oil cooler

OK, finally got baffling under control and now want to hang the oil cooler and after reading other posts I am concerned the seven row cooler that came with the firewall forward is not enough. What I have is a RV8A with 200 HP IO360 and live in a hot climate.
I have read as much as I could find on which cooler to use but the more I read the more confused things become. Can any one point me in the right direction for an oil cooler that will fit on the #4 baffle of rv8a and cool a io360 in a hot climate of 100 degrees plus. Unfortunately the firewall is not an option.

As always thanks for any help.

I'm running the "small" cooler on my 200 HP RV 8 with no problems. And I'm pretty sure I travel in hotter climates than you. I think one of the keys is to insulate the cooler from the radiant heat thrown off the fins. I use a small plenum that's very effective.

The Stewart Warner 8406R is pretty popular and cools a bit better than the "stock" cooler.

The 8432R oil cooler is a stock Mooney M20J item and I have never seen the oil temp over 180 degrees. Below 50F OAT, it doesnt run over 170 degrees.

The SW 10599R is a "single pass" 9-row cooler with the same exterior dimensions as the SW 8432R and works pretty good on a high compression IO-360 (ECI Titan engine with piston oil squirters) on my friend's RV-8, mounted on the cyl #4 rear baffle. It still gets kinds hot on a climb on hot Texas summer days, but suffices. It's an expensive oil cooler, but sometimes you gotta spend big dollars on a quality part. YMMV.

If you haven't considered it, you might want to stand your oil cooler back off the baffle. This will allow air to get the the whole oil cooler, not just the top.







Cheers

Thanks For all the replies. Something I didn?t mention in my original post is when I ordered my fire wall forward kit I didn?t know any better about the cooling issues so I have the Niagara 20002A in my hand, after looking up the Stewart Warner 8406R Walt suggested it looks like this cooler has the same bolt up dimensions as the 20002A, so I am thinking of trying the stock cooler and if it doesn?t work I can change out to the 8406R pretty easily. Why I think this is worth a try is when I go thru the search and read past posts half the been there tried that?s say they have no problems with similar engine set ups and stock cooler and the other half say my engine is guaranteed to overwhelm the stock cooler. Do you think this is worth a try, that 8406R is one expensive piece of aluminum?
I have no problem spending the money on the 8406R but when I started this project 4 years ago and pitched it to my wife we went on Vans site and I showed her the cost estimator, well I can?t take my wife to any fly ins where Van might be there in fear of what might happen.

If anyone from Aircraft Spruce is reading this you should send two receipts with orders, one for me to file and one I show the wife that says (What Not Auto Pats-oil cooler) that way I can just say, but babe you know how those dam Fords are.

A more affordable alternative to the high-dollar SW oil coolers are the 9 and 10 row Aero Classics, sold thru Spruce, in the ~ $250 price range.

Doesn't the IO-360-A1A angle valve engine have piston oil squirters? Piston squirters draw a huge amount of heat off the pistons and put that heat into the oil, which will likely overwhelm a Niagara 20002A very quickly, or even a SW 8406. Numerous past threads exist here on VAF about this very topic for angle valve engines with piston squirters, and most have difficulty cooling the oil on them and end up having to resort to typically a 13-row cooler.

oil cooler

I built my RV8 with the stock oil cooler that came in the Vans FWF kit. I spent a lot of time trying to keep the oil temperature at an acceptable level. My engine is an ECI Titan IO360 with 9 to 1 compression pistons. There are no piston oil squirters. I would see temperatures close to 225 if I stayed low on hot afternoon flights. Up high, it was OK. CHTs have never been a problem. I got tired of worrying with it, so I ordered the 9 row cooler and verified that my baffling, etc. was tight. I had to widen the opening behind the #4 cylinder but the vertical distance was correct. It solved my problem, but on hot summer days close to the ground, I'll still see temperatures close to 210 degrees when I run it hard. At 8500 feet the temperature will stabalize at about 190 degrees. I recommend the 9 row cooler......it will be money well spent.

If anyone from Aircraft Spruce is reading this you should send two receipts with orders, one for me to file and one I show the wife that says (What Not Auto Pats-oil cooler) that way I can just say, but babe you know how those dam Fords are.
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scan and photoshop, no problem. I didn't have that problem, my wife bought me my oil cooler for christmas. she even ordered the right one!

bob burns
RV-4 N82RB

Hey Matt, my hangar neighbor at Stead is a multi-RV-8 builder, and may have some good ideas for you. Have you cut the hole for the cooler in the #4 baffle yet? If so, he still may have some ideas for you, including standoff methods and baffle reinforcement...but if not, he has a slick way of mounting a double-wide cooler to the 8's FW, with a nice plenum to it, and an adjustable inlet control to reduce airflow to the cooler in our Reno winters. PM me for my contact info, and happy to introduce you. One of his recent 8 projects has the cowl off now, for easy viewing.

Cheers,
Bob

rvmills said:

Hey Matt, my hangar neighbor at Stead is a multi-RV-8 builder, and may have some good ideas for you. Have you cut the hole for the cooler in the #4 baffle yet? If so, he still may have some ideas for you, including standoff methods and baffle reinforcement...but if not, he has a slick way of mounting a double-wide cooler to the 8's FW, with a nice plenum to it, and an adjustable inlet control to reduce airflow to the cooler in our Reno winters. PM me for my contact info, and happy to introduce you. One of his recent 8 projects has the cowl off now, for easy viewing.

Cheers,
Bob

Click to expand...

Bob,

I would be very interested to see how your friend has mounted the cooler at the firewall, just a couple pictures would save lots of time on this end. I am going to mount the cooler at the FW one way or another, it was there with the 7 and it worked excellent.

Thanks.

Thanks again for all the help with this, after taking Neal?s suggestion on the Aero classics cooler I spook with Mark Oldman at Pacific coolers, his suggestion was a classic Aero 8 row 2 pass cooler. Mark says he has several customers in very hot climates with very good results. I am trying to do this once and be done with it so I bit the bullet and the new cooler should be here today. I should be able to mount it this weekend, the dimensions are a little bigger then the vans 20002A cooler but not by much.
Bob, Scott he has been over to look at my project a few times, I have not cut the hole for the cooler yet but at this stage in the game the firewall is not an option, I wish it was Scoot does seem to have the oil cooling problem solved.
Bob, If you are at your hanger this weekend I would like to come by and see how you did the bracing from the engine case to the baffling, I reinforced my baffling to help with cracking but I think a brace like you did might make it better.

Bob Burners you are one lucky man?.

Got the cooler mounted, it is a tight fit. The edge of the cooler is about a 1/4" from the engine mount, should this be enough???

I used the left over channel from the canopy slider track as a standoff to get the cooler away from the cylinder head to help not transfer heat from the head to the oil cooler.


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try this again

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And the standoff.