Another Oil Cooler Question

[Sully]

I'm installing an 8 tube 10599R Oil cooler on the IO-390 in my RV-7 and am facing the typical space problems going with the conventional location on the back side of the left rear baffle. It may be a dumb thought but with proper bracing whats wrong with mounting it on the rear of the right rear baffle. There is quite a bit more space as well as room to completely expose all of the cooler to the airflow.

[Neal@F14]

We've got a 10599R mounted on the rear baffle of the RV-8 in my avatar (ECI Titan IO-360). The baffle is reinforced with a 1/8" thick aluminum perimeter riveted on where the cooler meets the baffle and it's holding up quite well for about 140 hours now with no signs of cracking so far.

The -7 has less room at the rear of the cooler where the engine mount tubes are at a sharper angle that the -8 has, but others have successfully mounted this SW cooler or the equivalent-sized Aero Classic model on an RV-7 before.

[Mel]

Originally Posted by Sully

It may be a dumb thought but with proper bracing whats wrong with mounting it on the rear of the right rear baffle.

Where is your dipstick tube?

[Sully]

Mel
Its laying on the work bench I removed it to install the baffles and didn't think about it when I was looking at all that space on the right. I knew it had to be a dumb idea.

[DanH]

Got room for a remote mount? IO-390, 10599 cooler. This one is also ducted to the cowl exit, but I have built a similar setup for an IO360 without exit plumbing and it did well.

[Sully]

Dan,
I believe I have room to do something similar to your install, (which is a beautiful piece of work by the way) but haven't given up on putting it on the baffle yet. Do you have some photos of the method you used to mount the cooler itself?

[DanH]

Originally Posted by Sully

Do you have some photos of the method you used to mount the cooler itself?

It's simply bolted to the 0.060" 2024T3 plate, three machine screws top and bottom shared with the black plenum. The plate has 1/2" flanges bent on the forward and aft edges. Mount with four -12 cushion clamps. Make the fiberglass inlet plenum:



http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...ad.php?t=44856

[elippse]

Just keep in mind that after you've done a superb job of designing and installing the cooling air inlet, your job is only half done if you don't take as much time to design the cooling air outlet in the form of a contracting duct that speeds-up the outlet and turns it to the rear. Half-vast ideas are only for half-vast people!

[skylor]

On my RV-8 with an IO-360 Angle Valve, I've had very good luck with the stock Van's Niagara cooler mounted to the right baffle:







I know of an RV-6 with an IO-360 that also has the oil cooler in this location with good results. FYI, my oil temps typically run 190F in cruise, 210F on an extended climb on a hot (100F) day. I did see 230F once during an extended climb when taking off after a short lunch stop from St. George UT. In this case, the engine was already heat soaked from the previous flight. Lowering the nose during the climb to get the IAS up to 135 knots brought the temperature right back down. Also, my CHT's run extremely cool with this setup (330F @ 75% power cruise, always less than 400F during long climbs).

Skylor