Larger Oil Cooler?

[sonerainut]

Greetings All!

I am new to the Sonerai.net website and this online forum, so If I am going about this the wrong way please let me know.

I have a IILS with a stock Great Plains 2180 cc engine and have been fighting high oil temps since my first flight, CHT's are OK. I basically have to manage power and climb speed to keep the oil temp from redlining - no fun flying when I'm thinking I'm frying the engine. I have tried several different ducting schemes, etc. with no avail. The engine is equipped with the stock VW top mount oil cooler with a set back plate from Great Plains.

I noticed in Scott Plischke's photos that he originally had the same stock cooler and wound up installing the larger (Great Plains?) cooler. I am pretty sure I need to go the way Scott did , but before I start changing things I thought I would throw this out for comments.

Thanks for the help.

Regards,

Lee Riedel (sonerainut)

 

[splischke]

Lee,

Welcome to the forum. You did perfect for your first post!

You mentioned ducting schemes so I assume you have box baffles - ? Some people have commented that they have less oil temp problems when using pressure cowls. Don't know if this is true and if I had more time on my hands, I'd switch to a pressure cowl to see if it indeed makes a difference. Anyway, the external oil cooler totally solved my oil temp problem and the box baffles keep the heads nice and cool.

Keep us informed.

-Scott

 

[sonerainut]

Scott,

I have a pressure cowl set up - after installing a lip on the cowling air outlet the CHT's are great! The box baffles are slick - I just went with the basic pressure cowl set up because I am more familiar with that setup. It sounds like I should have incorporated a larger oil cooler from day 1. I'm OK when it is 80deg OAT but loose the battle above that. Since it is always hot during Oshkosh I have to do something. I see you used the Great Plains twin outlet tower - now which cooler do I pick? It looks like you used the 48 row from Great Plains. Do you run into too low oil temp problems. I can always foil tape over a portion for cold weather ops.

Great job on the website - I'll get my profile updated and add some pictures soon.

Regards,

Lee

 

[Schmleff]

I had the smaller plate cooler from GPAS and could never get my oil temps to within reason. I switched to a Mocal cooler of the same size and have no issues now. Those plate coolers let way too much air past without putting it to work.

 

[splischke]

Lee,

Yes, I use the 48 row cooler from Great Plains. The cooler is an overkill in the winter but much appreciated in the summer. During the winter, I simply put a piece of duct tape over the smiley vent. A much better solution is to build a cockpit controllable door to regulate the amount of air going to the cooler. Perhaps I'll do this one day.

-Scott

 

[Schmleff]

Here is a pict of the mocal installed.

 

[JuergenA]

Hi Lee,
for my S1, the original builder told to me, that there is a problem with the oil temperatures at low speeds.
With this information, first I messured my cowling air inlets and my cowling air outlet. In the orginal, the area was 1 to 0.7 (inlet to outlet). My first work was , to opened the outlet to become 1 to 1.
Additional I made a foam part , to give the air a smoother edge on the bottom of the firewall, so the air can better flow.
The result was, I had no problems with the oil temps and can close the inlet below the prop what is cooling the bottom of the engine.
With my last setup, I can start, with closed cowling flap and have no problems with oil temps. In cruise,
I fly with 3600rpm at 150mph (1600 engine).
For this, I had also asked the Limbach company and they said, the inlet to outlet should have 1 : 1.5 to 1 : 2 .
In my new setup (finished in 1-2 mounth), I opened the outlet more, to come near 1:2
For my setup, I will take some pictures in my gallerie.
regards
Juergen