When I did all of the baffle work in the lower cowl to isolate the flow path from the areas above and outboard of the cylinders and the area between the rear of the engine and the firewall there was a apparent gain in speed of approximately 4 kts over the baseline I had established of 170 kts. I was using the U.S. Air Race handicap procedure for testing and it is a little flawed. Since then I have recomputed using the NTPS spreadsheet and I believe the gain still holds up. Sometime after that my vacuum pump failed and when I replaced it I added another blast tube hole in the baffle behind cylinder #3 to supply cooling air theough a hose and shroud bought from Airgraft Spruce. All of the holes in the rear baffle Heater/defroster air, mag blast tubes, Vacuum pump blast tube and the oil cooler dump the air into the cavity behind the rear baffle and must find its way to an narrow vent at the top of the cowl outlet. There was an apparent reduction in speed after the new cooling system was added for the vacuum pump and it has been a long slow process of minor mods getting the speed back to the 172-173 kt range. Here is the new thought: Make a sealing plate to cover all of the holes except the oil cooler for races only. Any thoughts.
Bob Axsom
Bob Axsom