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Heat Soaked P-Mags

MikeyDale

Well Known Member
I'm a little worried! I bought and installed dual P-mags last week. I read about the importance of having blast tubes on the mags and I do. The documentation warns about letting the mags reach 200 deg F. They even have a small sticker on top of the mag that turns black when you get them over 200 deg. I test flew the mags a few days ago for a short flight in the cool morning and they did great! I noted the little dot didn't turn black indicating over 200 deg. All is good. Then today I go up for about an hour and a half doing touch and goes and kinda wringing them out. It was 84deg this afternoon which is pretty cool for West Texas. I come in and pull the plane in the hanger and pop open the oil door and all is good. The little sticker is still white. The I got curious and got my infrared heat thermometer and checked the temp of the mag. It was about 190 but I noticed it was climbing! I could feel a lot of heat coming out of the oil door and I have an open anti-splat cowl flap. The temp topped out at 216 degrees before it started cooling off! And, you guessed it, the little tattle tail dot was black!........My question is, I know there are a lot of RV's out there using these P-mags, how do you keep them from overheating when you shut down the engine?
 
I just don't worry about it. I think the bigger issue is running them when they are over 200F. There is no way you are going to stop them from hitting 200F after shut down.
 
Good to know I'm not the only one. I have about 800 hrs on my right emag, so far so good even though it has gone above 200 degrees. I did ditch the dots and got some 3 point temperature strips from McMaster-Carr. Mainly it tells me that I can go a while without hitting 200 or 210 but eventually I do. Really it just tells me the same thing with a little more detail, no help on how to keep it from happening. Oh well.
 

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