Fellows: Wasn't it paul loewen who took an older, big holed mooney,
lengthened cowling and totally eliminated air inlet holes and only allowed
swirl off prop hub to actually reduce his air cooled lycoming's operating
temperature ? Back in late 70s or early 80s, I believe. Did away with all
external rivet drag, all that stuff as well and it was called 'the loewen
liner' or something cute like that, iirc.
There were those who claimed that there was no way that
would work. Well, I reduced my inlet area from 48 sq inch to 28 and it
works just fine thank you. Tracy Crook can vouch that I have flown with
the small openings for well over a year and he has never seen steam or smoke
coming from my engine - yet {:>).
Hey Ed...that was probably me! All my analysis uses Military Air
outside conditions (+40 deg F over standard conditions), are climbing at
100 mph TAS (near max rate of climb) and assumes that you are actually
generating 200 HP. At 2,000 ASL and +40 deg F over
standard....I suspect you are not generating 200HP and if you are indeed
capable of 200 HP probably do not maintain that operating condition
sufficiently long (at 100 mph) to reach steady state conditions which my
rules of thumb consider.
Hopefully if you ever are approaching the trees on T/O under the
more severe conditions you can tolerate 245+ deg F engine out coolant
temperature. Been there done that with the Mooney. You know
what? The throttle stayed in WOT and no leaves on the belly! It
defined "pucker" for me. So you'll have to forgive me if I size my
inlets just a little bit larger for our 95 deg summer days. (Military
Air at sea level is 99 deg F)...WOT...generating 200 HP for an extended
period!! Do what Tracy "noodles" and spray water on the heat
exchangers!! Of course you have to carry that two gallons of water
around for the inevitable situation :>). Sort of like a "gear
up...not if, but when...if one flys
enough.