Dave,
Sure. Here are a couple. The radiator sits directly on top of
the fan.
Steve
-----Original
Message-----
From: Rotary motors in aircraft
[mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net]On Behalf
Of Dave Wilenius
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 5:27
PM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Back in
the air
Steve,
Any pictures of
your rad plenum and fan?
Dave Wilenius
Plans # 796
http://wilenius.webcentre.ca
-----Original Message-----
From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net]On Behalf Of Steve Brooks
Sent: August 3, 2008 9:34 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Back in the
air
I’ve had my plane torn apart for about 3 ½ months
rebuilding the cooling system, in between vacation, wife’s projects, and
problems fitting in the radiator.
I installed a custom made radiator, replacing two evaporator cores that
I was using. The evaporator cores
provided only marginal cooling for the turbo 13B, in a pusher aircraft
In order to install the new radiator, I also had to
relocate almost all of the fuel system components, and I replaced the aluminum
lines connecting the fuel pumps to filters to regulator with SS braided AN
hose/fittings.
Due to the extensive changes, I had at least an hour,
maybe hour and a half of ground testing, including four high speed taxi’s up to
rotate speed.
The new cooling system also has a cooling fan which I
was able to integrate into the plenum holding the radiator. At 95 F degrees OAT, and turning the fan
on at about 190 F degrees coolant temperature, The fan maintained 180 F for 20
minutes of ground operation, including some high power testing.
This morning OAT was about 78 F, which is very good
for North Carolina in August, I
wanted something less than 95 F for the first test of the new cooling
system. I did not use the cooling
fan for taxi or takeoff, as I wanted to see what the cooling was without the
fan. I took of and climbed up to
about 1200’ AGL. The coolant was
up to about 205, and oil at 185. I
leveled off and reduced the throttle to normal cruise power. I watched the coolant temperature for a
little while (maybe 15-20 seconds), and it seemed to stay at the 205 F
reading. I wish now that I’d been
a little more patient, but I kicked on the cooling fan, and the temperature
came down pretty quickly to slightly above 180 F. I turned the fan off again and the temperature stayed right
there. I did power up and climb
another 300 feet or so, but really didn’t push it too hard on the first flight. The temperature didn’t really move too
much during the brief climb. All
other systems ran perfectly and it was a very nice flight. I did stay within gliding distance of
the runway the whole flight, but based on zero squawks on this flight, the next
one will be longer.
While I would like to have seen a little better
performance, I was happy with the improved cooling over the old system. Climbing to pattern altitude old the
old system at today’s temperature would have been 215 – 220F. On the next flight, I’ll take off using
the cooling fan, and see what kind of numbers I get with it. I hope to see something more in the
185-190 range, but I’ll have to see what the real number are.
Steve Brooks
Cozy MKIV N75CZ
Turbo rotary