MarkW

MarkW

Well Known Member
Friend
I am building a RV-9 with IO-320 and like the idea of a firewall mounted oil cooler. I know there are arguments against but I want to know of those that have done it with the Van's 3" scat tubing, does it cool well enough?

Seems this would solve the baffle problem, there seems to be plenty of room on the firewall, I can use a butterfly control valve, and it looks a lot cleaner.

My concern is mostly whether the 3" should be a 4". However Van's doesn't sell the 4" round flanges so I am assuming the 3" is enough air.

Yes I have read all the archives.

Thanks,
 
I have a similar set up on my -8 with a 4" scat and I'm going to change it to a 3". The bigger is better theory doesn't work here. I don't think I'm getting any benefit of the larger tube.
 
My firewall mounted oil cooler has been working great for over 20 years.
I have two 2" scat tubings. One 3" would be better but I used what I had.
 
I mounted mine RV7A on the firewall, just aft of the left side of the engine 3 inch tubing, cools good.
Dave
 
firewall mounted oil cooler

i've got a naca duct in the side of the cowl feeding 3 inch scat, works really well. only thing i would do different is to install with ducting to better direct air out of the cooler to the cowl exit, i suspect my set up is generating some extra drag
 
n816kc said:
i've got a naca duct in the side of the cowl feeding 3 inch scat, works really well. only thing i would do different is to install with ducting to better direct air out of the cooler to the cowl exit, i suspect my set up is generating some extra drag
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What motor are you running with this, and which oil cooler. I am in the prosess of upgrading my cooler because this set-up is giving me high oil temps. I am going from a 6 row to a 13 row. I am fabricating a fiberglass transition instead of running ducting.
 
Firewall Mounted Cooler

We have an RV-6 with 160 HP using 3" Scat, works great even during the summer.
We have an RV-12 with a UL Power 260Is.
Using the same set up we have elevated oil temps.
It appears the lower air speed in the RV-12 is not moving a large enough volumne of air.
In fact at present we have two coolers in series together to do the job.
 
Thanks for the feedback. It looks like that will be the route I will take.
 
Not sure if your ECI Titan IO-320 will be anywhere near as much of a heat-producing monster or not, but my friend's RV-8 has a high-compression ECI Titan IO-360 with 9.2:1 pistons and the piston oil squirters inside the crankcase. The piston squirters draw a huge amount of heat from the bottom side of the pistons and dump all that heat into the oil. The upside to that is his CHTs have never been a problem, they've always been in the mid 300's, maybe 370-380 even on the hottest of days, but the downside is the oil temps have always been a pain to keep under control, even with a big expensive SW-10599R oil cooler. On the other hand, my stock factory Lycoming 160hp O-320-D1A has troubles getting the oil temp high enough on cold days, and that's with an aluminum plate completely blocking off all the airflow into the front of the oil cooler (a plain small 7-row NDM cooler)
 
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I mounted mine on the firewall using Van's firewall mount kit, VA-186.

I didn't want to use one large 4" hose as my baffles already have a 3" on one side and a 2" on the other.

I cut the top out of the mount with the 4" flange, leaving about a 1/2" all the way around, put nut plates in the corners, then fabbed up a lid out of aluminum which mounts on top. From there I mounted a 2" and a 3" flange for each hose:

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/pages/ha/flanged/ductflanges.php

I'll fab up a shutter of some kind for one of the hoses.
 
works great

I used 3.5" scat and the large cooler (2006A) that Van sells for the RV-10.

I have the angle-valve IO-360-A1A with the piston squirters, and this cooling set-up works really well.

I have an old post that has a picture, I'll see if I can link it here.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?p=370105&highlight=oil+cooler+firewall#post370105

Also, I posted a follow-up some time ago -- I had neglected to seal the side edges of the cooler where it mounts against the plenum. There were little leak paths at all the cooling fins. Sealing those with orange RTV (not shown here) really helped.
 
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