Hi All,
I was vacantly staring at my firewall today waiting for the last of the required parts before I lift the engine in place when I realized that there was potentially a massive heat dump starting me right in the face.
With the heater vent valve closed, the air is simply ducted into the back of the engine bay, where you have temperature sensitive items such as a lithium battery, magnetos or electronic ignition, not to mention that on hot days all you are doing is heating the firewall, which is actually the last thing you want to be doing. What will probably make things worse is that I have an outlet duct/ramp planned to improve exist flow and ensure adequate engine cooling on hot days, but the downside of this will be that this air against the firewall will have minimal air circulation apart from the heater duct pumping a scorching hot blast into the area.
I'm thinking that a possible solution is riveting a 2" diameter stub to the outlet of the heater bypass, then ducting this air through a scat tube into the exit airflow before it leaves the cowling.
I continually read on this forum about equipment overheating at the back of the engine or mounted near the firewall. Ashley Miller's RV-10 has firewall insulation, but you will see in the uninsulated sections (engine mount bolts etc) the temperatures are still hitting 60 degrees (see pictures in the link below).
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y3p5MnhtM1hGeHBKSlR1cS1PQXV0MVZXcWVPandn
Am I way off the reservation here, or is this something that should be addressed whilst I have access and the possibility to do so?
Tom.
I was vacantly staring at my firewall today waiting for the last of the required parts before I lift the engine in place when I realized that there was potentially a massive heat dump starting me right in the face.
With the heater vent valve closed, the air is simply ducted into the back of the engine bay, where you have temperature sensitive items such as a lithium battery, magnetos or electronic ignition, not to mention that on hot days all you are doing is heating the firewall, which is actually the last thing you want to be doing. What will probably make things worse is that I have an outlet duct/ramp planned to improve exist flow and ensure adequate engine cooling on hot days, but the downside of this will be that this air against the firewall will have minimal air circulation apart from the heater duct pumping a scorching hot blast into the area.
I'm thinking that a possible solution is riveting a 2" diameter stub to the outlet of the heater bypass, then ducting this air through a scat tube into the exit airflow before it leaves the cowling.
I continually read on this forum about equipment overheating at the back of the engine or mounted near the firewall. Ashley Miller's RV-10 has firewall insulation, but you will see in the uninsulated sections (engine mount bolts etc) the temperatures are still hitting 60 degrees (see pictures in the link below).
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Y3p5MnhtM1hGeHBKSlR1cS1PQXV0MVZXcWVPandn
Am I way off the reservation here, or is this something that should be addressed whilst I have access and the possibility to do so?
Tom.