Lynn,

You sent that drawing some time ago during a previous discussion on cooling.
My system is set up very similar, but I wonder what the effects of the
differences might be.  I don’t have a swirl pot, but the cap on the radiator is like in your
drawing where it doesn’t seal for pressure.  Another difference is that my
radiator is a double pass, so the radiator cap is after the first pass of
the radiator.  You don’t show where you come in with the air bleed from the
top of the front iron.  Mine comes in just under the radiator cap.  This
allows the air to move into the make up bottle quickly.  But the down side
is that whatever coolant comes thru that ¼ inch line bypasses the first pass
of the radiator and only goes thru the last pass.  However, I think that
this coolant has only made one pass thru the engine as well. ( I have no clue how the coolant flows thru the block, but I think it goes
down one side and back up the other side to the water pump???)  I would like
someone to set me straight on this coolant flow thru the engine.  There are
two outlets, this one and the heater supply that come off the front iron.
They must somehow only get contact with half the engine since the water pump
is on the other end of the engine. ???

Bill B

 

  _____  From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On
Behalf Of Lynn Hanover
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 10:33 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Cooling Plumbing

You need some kind of header/expansion tank in sys. with aprox 4 to 8 square
inches of air, allows sys. to pressurise more easily & maintains a steady
pressure.   David Cook  RV6A  Rotary.

 

Here is one system that works perfectly and has since 1980. For Mazda before
that. The swirl tank idea comes with the instructions for each New CosWorth
race engine. The restrictor idea is mine. The pressure cap only on the make
up bottle (and the actual bottle in my case) is the stock layout from every
RX-2 and RX-3 imported to the USA. The swirl pot is not required, it just
works very fast, and my system is apart often. So I use it.

 

The tube to the bottle comes off of the radiator in the cars. In the
airplane it would need to come from the location where ever air would likely
collect. In most cases, the highest part of the water pump outlet, or the
top of the rear iron. With the engine dead level in the racer, this system
removes all of the air in 2 heat cycles. The fluid level must be replenished
twice. I keep the bottle about 1/3 full to allow 2/3 to be compressible air.
It is an accumulator just like big airplanes, and big heating systems and
boilers. No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

Lynn E. Hanover