Message-ID: <006601bff16a$ae782500$f8c11c18@mgfairfax.rr.com>
From: "Richard Helms" <rhelms@cox.rr.com>
To: <lancair.list@olsusa.com>
References: <20000714044839.AAB24719@ns1.olsusa.com>
Subject: Re: Firewall Forward (IO-360)
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 06:18:28 -0400
Reply-To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
Mime-Version: 1.0

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   Rob,
     I thought you would get more answers than you have so I'll try to
stimulate some responses to your questions by answering them as well as some
you did not ask.  First of all, you'll never do it all over Christmas for a
variety of really good reasons.

Re

1)  Where is the preferred location for the oil cooler?  I've seen them up
by
the front on the left side, just below the baffling, and also on the
firewall
as shown in the manual.
     There are many oil cooler locations people have been satisfied with per
the factory.  If you do filtered air from the intake the only place to do
that is in front of number 2 cylinder, where Orin mounted his oil cooler.
He just let the air exit through the bottom of the cowling with no SCAT
work.   I have not seen any oil coolers mounted on the back of the engine
baffling but have seen some take air off of the back of the baffling to a
firewall mounted cooler.  The only problem with that you run a chance of
having higher CHTs.
   Mine (with long engine mount) is mounted on the firewall, pretty much in
line with the exit hole of the NACA scoop I installed in the lower left cowl
per LNN piece Jim Frantz did years ago.    This is kind of how it is shown
on the installation drawings except mine is mounted vertically.  It works
well there with a fiberglass exit flange and SCAT tubing taking the hot air
to the right side of the nose gear strut.  I have oil temps in the 180 range
with the exhaust work done as above, with it just dumping into the accessory
side, I rarely got the oil temps to 180 degrees.  There are some geometry
issues in making sure you can get to all the fittings (to turn them) when
the oil cooler is mounted ...the engine mount can get in the way, so plan
this carefully otherwise things have to be removed to make adjustments.
One reason for mounting the cooler on the firewall is that you have a fairly
easy job ahead of you in making the 1/2 inch or so aluminum angle pieces for
accomplishing the mount.  Hey, and you can do them before Christmas but you
will not be able to drill through them for the firewall portion because the
cooler gets in the way.  You might want to make a templete of where the hole
locations are to accomplish this.   I did not get any better cooling from
putting louvers and an exit diffuser on the inside of the cowl, on the lower
right side, so I took them off.

2)  For firewall-mounted oil coolers, is there a readily available "duct"
that transitions from the round SCAT tubing to the rectangular oil cooler?
(as an aero engineer I'd call this a 'diffuser')  I've seen some truly
hideous homemade fiberglass parts and was hoping to buy a prefabbed sheet
metal or fiberglass part.  Has anyone made a sheet metal one, or had one
made?
   I did not know of the ACS product but constructed mine out of fiberglass.
Easy to do, even if it takes you a couple of times to get it right (they
were hideous and/or  not quite workable).  I used a two inch long piece of 3
inch diameter AL tube which I glassed into the "diffuser" for receiving the
SCAT tubing.  Make sure you construct the diffuser with the location of the
NACA scoop (if you put one on) and the engine mount in mind.

3)  I've seen some really nice gascolator installations.  Does the
Lancair-supplied kit come with the metal brackets and cooling enclosure?
The
catalog seems to suggest that it does.
   You probably have this answered by Vern.  Mine is mounted with two
extruded pieces of angle aluminum about 1 and 1/2 inches wide and heavily
cut to accommodate the Andair gascolator.  A hard part for me in mounting
the gascolator was getting the aluminum tubing going to it and from it bent
to acceptable standards.  Fuel lines are critical as we all know so I worked
this over quite a few times until it looked pretty good and firesleeved it.
It is another issue of figuring out where the aluminum lines go or can go
while avoiding the engine mount.  Another thing to think about his how far
out from the firewall you want the gascolator.  When you go to cut a whole
in the bottom of the cowl so you can drain the gascolator, you want a
straight shot (mine has a 45 degree elbow in it), so you can clear the
cowling flange at the bottom.   An alternative which I used for a long time
was turning on the fuel pump which I had to do to get it to drain (not
uncommon), laying under the airplane and reaching up through the bottom of
the cowl, opening the gascolator and keeping it open until the fuel reached
my elbow, closing the drain, wiping my arm on the way up to turn the fuel
pump off.  I saw some installations where a rubber tube was run down to the
bottom right side where you will have your air/oil separator drain, fuel
pump drain and other drains clamped secured.

4)  I assume I should have the alternator and prop governor and vacuum pump
system (if I don't go electric) installed to make sure that hoses and other
components have adequate clearance and access.  Comments?
   I installed everything after the engine was on the mount on the aircraft.
The alternator is not a factor.  I could not get my engine mounted easily
without the vaccum pump being removed.  While talking about the vaccum pump,
on an IO360 B1F, you have to mount it 90 degrees to verticle because the
Airborne fittings will not clear the bottom of the top cowl.  Airborne makes
a nice little expensive wrench by the way which makes tightening those
bottom nuts possible.  It would undoubtably be easier to do it with the
engine on the mount and the mount off the aircraft but I did not try that
and I can't tell you how hard or easy it would be to put the engine mount on
the aircraft while the engine was hanging off of it.   The prop governor, on
the back of the engine is a real hoot to install.  You will be building a
flange to mount the prop control cable to the governor.  I bought one from
Mod Works at the recommendation of Rick Argente (intended for the Mooney)
and had to do significant modification to get it to fit.  The challenge will
be making sure you have clearance for the flange and for the cable, exiting
on the far right (passenger) side of the firewall and kind of high so it
hits a good tangent of the arc of the prop governor control arm.   The
mounting flange is quite long and needs to securely hold the prop cable.
You end up having a few inches of cable running from the firewall to the end
of the mounting flange.

5)  Does the B&C voltage regulator go in the engine compartment?  I assume
so.
   My battery is on the cabin side of the firewall and my B&C is in the
engine compartment.   Make sure you get both pages of the B&C instructions,
they are printed on both sides of one piece of paper and only one side was
copied.  The back side is real important.  B&C by the way is a great group
of guys who will give you their home telephone numbers and encourage you to
call them on the weekends if you need to.

6) Any preference for which remote spin-on oil filter?  I assume the
Lycoming
arrangement does not have the filter located vertically, thus you make a
mess
when you remove it.  The ADC spin-on filter kit seems to have a smaller
adapter than the Airwolf system, at least in the pictures.  I'm not
interested in the ADC wash-it-yourself system.  Should I be?
   I have the ADC spin on and frankly, for all the extra fittings and hoses,
I am not sure a remote mount makes a difference.  I still get oil everywhere
when I do an oil change.  You cannot use the bolts (?) to secure one of the
four corners, there is no way to get the bolt on so you will need to call
them and get them to sent you the stuff you need which they do at no cost
and very quickly.

7)  I'd like to hang the cowling while the engine is attached.  Proably need
to anyways, to ensure that hoses are routed with adequate clearance.  I'll
be
using the MT 3-bladed prop, which comes with the spinner, but I won't have
it
yet.  Has anyone purchased a spinner without buying the prop?  Can I get by
with just a backing plate for now?  Would it even have to be a backing plate
for this particular prop?  Couldn't I just go to an airplane junkyard and
get
any ol' spinner plate, for cowling mounting purposes?
   You cannot do the cowling without the prop on.  I had to wait for mine to
arrive.

8)  There are now14 AN-970-7 area washers on my airplane between the engine
mount and the firewall.  They weigh almost one pound!  I'm taking Brent
Regan's advice and replacing these with aluminum ones.  Having trouble
finding them, though, and don't want to use a hole saw and lathe to
painstakingly make aluminum area washers.  Anyone know where to find them?

   Not answering your question but saving you some grief perhaps, one of the
things you will probably do is secure the area washers behind the stainless
steel firewall with epoxy/flox in the event you ever have to take the mount
off you won't have to worry about the washing slipping to a position you
can't get to it.  If you do that, afterwards you will need to mount the
engine and torque everything and do your engine longtitudnal axis check
before going any further.  Before you take one step toward clecoing the
cowling to the airplane make sure that you have leveled that engine to the
specs in the manual.  If you do not do it you may not have enough room to
clear the top of the engine mount or have some other cowl alignment
problems, not to mention having your plane fly a lot differently than
everybody elses.  You may have gotten flox or something under one or more of
the washers or otherwise need to adjust your not so perfect set up.  It is
easier to do that by putting a washer here or there between the engine mount
and the firewall than it is to put another washer under the rubber engine
mounts.  The latter is your alternative fix.

   One other piece of advice.  There are some nasty little fittings that are
best put on the engine with it off of the mount when  you can easily reach
them.  Depending upon the type of instruments and engine you have, take a
look at those locations, get the plugs out and the fittings in before the
engine goes on the mount.  (oil pressure comes to mind as a big time problem
but so do the ADC fittings on the engine)  manifold pressure was less of a
problem but the mount seems to interfere whenever you give it a chance.

Good luck
Hollis Helms


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