How Big an oil cooler on the baffles?

I am wondering what is the largest oil cooler folks have managed to mount on their baffles? My experience has always been good with the "standard" seven-row cooler, but we're working on another project where the cooling might be marginal (still a parallel valve 360 - but speeds are a lot lower), and Pacific Coolers is thinking we might want to start with their eleven-row model.

I'd rather keep things on the baffle (an we're using a Van's Baffle Kit) to keep things simple, but not sure if that will fit - any experience from the collective?

Pictures are good!

Oil cooler

I can send you some pics of a 17 Row in my RV 8 , not on the baffle but on a mount off the firewall . Best of all it works great .
Pm me an email

Ironflight said:

I'd rather keep things on the baffle (an we're using a Van's Baffle Kit)

Click to expand...

And if that doesnt work-----------

Have you given any thought to using the RV 10 firewall mounted setup??

Designed to cool a 540................

Paul,
I have an 11 row hanging on with a nice substantial mount. Look here
http://flic.kr/p/k91cqF
Hard to get the full pic, I will email more to you when I find them.

C-FAH Q said:

Paul,
I have an 11 row hanging on with a nice substantial mount. Look here
http://flic.kr/p/k91cqF
Hard to get the full pic, I will email more to you when I find them.

Click to expand...

I would be interested in any pics as well, Gary, if you're willing to share. I'm thinking about trying to put a bit bigger cooler on my 0-320 that what came stock in the FWF kit, but want to be to keep it on the baffles as well.

Found the pic I was looking for.
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I that bracket ever falls off, or cracks, I would be shocked.

Another example of a reinforced baffle-mounted oil cooler.

Thaks for the pics guys. I am also a member of the "reinforce it until you can lift the airplane by the oil cooler" camp when it comes to baffle mounts. I got some drawings from Pacific and will have to make a block of foam and do some fit tests. Firewall mount is possible using the RV-10 setup, but my number 2 choice just to keep things simple.

C-FAH Q said:

Found the pic I was looking for.

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I that bracket ever falls off, or cracks, I would be shocked.

Click to expand...

Gary-
Is that just U-channel that you used to stand the cooler farther aft off the back of the cylinder? Did you do that to make the cooler fit better or just to allow more air down to the cylinder and/or cooler?
Thanks!

I actually had a 13 row Aero Classics cooler mounted on the rear cyl 4 baffle of an RV-8 {parallel valve ECI IO-360) for one trip to Oshkosh and back. Afterwards, we discovered it was rubbing on the engine mount frame tubes, and a little bit on the fiberglass upper cowl too, but *almost* cleared both obstacles. The physical mounting was just about the "lift the airplane by the oil cooler" variety when I was completed with it. We ended up replacing the cooler with an SW 10599R cooler which fit without rubbing and provides almost enough capacity to keep the fire breathing Titan IO-360 with piston oil squirters cool on a hot Texas summer day.

alpinelakespilot2000 said:

Gary-
Is that just U-channel that you used to stand the cooler farther aft off the back of the cylinder? Did you do that to make the cooler fit better or just to allow more air down to the cylinder and/or cooler?
Thanks!

Click to expand...

It's two pieces of angle, that allowed nut plates to be installed to mount the bolts.

C-FAH Q said:

It's two pieces of angle, that allowed nut plates to be installed to mount the bolts.

Click to expand...

Clever, I like it. I was just thinking yesterday about how to get a channel. This will work. I'll wait to see if mine cools properly first, no use in solving an nonexistent problem.

Nine.

We put a 9 row cooler in the same spot as the Van's 7 row, with the same hardware and fittings. We had built-up an "ECI" IO-360 with 9:1 and hand tuned their experimental cylinders along with Jimmies throttle body. It was estimated to put out somewhere around 192-195 b.hp.. So the extra 2 rows on the standard Harrison cooler was the choice for this installation. I think I may have a few pictures, but am not that good at putting them up on this site.
The idea was to just move it out as far and drop it as low as to give 3/8" gap from the inside of the cowling. It worked out very well. The only two changes we made was to move the lower bolt on the right side up to the middle so it would clear the fins on the rear jug. And make the doubler behind and on the left side of the baffle beefed up to take the weight and vibration better. Hope this helps. Yours as always. R.E.A. III #80888

Be aware that the RV10 cooler mount has the inlet hole offset to the inboard side. I had to modify mine, (moved the hole over) to make the 4" scat tube run acceptable.

Randall in Sedona

I had replaced the stock Vans oil cooler with the Aero Classic 8000081 in 2010 after our first summer back in Texas. It did pretty good and fit the baffle fine. Sometimes in the heat of summer oil would get to 215 or 220. We just installed new baffles and snorkle on the -8 because the baffles were in bad shape. As long as we were doing that I decided to go to a larger oil cooler and mount it on the firewall. (Mission creep) The firewall mounting was not working out too well - the dip stick tube was in the way - so I changed to mounting it on the motor mount similar to what Dan H. did but on the left side instead of the right. The same only different, if you know what I mean.

I used an Air Flow Performance 2006X oil cooler, their PN 08-007477 90 degree duct cut it down to fit the oil cooler. According to the charts, the 2006X has about 40% more heat rejection than the previous cooler at the same pressure drop (5" H2O). The duct connects to a 4" diameter scat tube which connects to a slide door system made by Grizzly Products for a vacuum system used in wood working shops. The slide door is mounted to the baffle behind #4 cylinder where the oil cooler usually goes. Someone else here on VAF came up with the Grizzly idea. I'll find the part number and put it in the post later.

The test flight will happen in a couple of hours. We're putting the last of the baffle seal onto the new baffles now. Here are some pictures of the oil cooler installation. I have more that show the oil cooler mount better that I need to upload yet. It's basically triangular pieces of aluminum with adel clamps holding it to the engine mount.

Bill at Air Flow Systems was great to work with. He's thinking about incorporating a butterfly valve as an option in his ducts. I think that would be great and would have made this installation simpler.

I've got a Stewart-Warner 10599R hanging from my (reinforced) RV-8a baffles. No issues so far at just over 500 hours.


Guy

Brace the baffel

Paul, you're probably way ahead of me on this already but most of the RVers on my field (KBJC) have added a brace from the engine to the rear baffle. This has eliminated the cracking problems around the oil cooler, at least for now.....
Here's a pic of mine
Bob