On 03/16/2011 05:18 AM, rparigoris wrote:
> I have a 914 and will be installing a Mocal oil thermostat.
Have you thought about installing a mocal oil to water heat exchanger?
The Finnish guys are flying with these and use them for heating up the
oil as well as for cooling. (also when they make trips to warm south
European fields during summer, and they seem to experience less cooling
problems than other folks). They use it instead of an air cooled oil
radiator. So it actually saves weight, and with the traditional oil
cooler removed from the duct, you will find that the water cooling
capacity increases tremendously, more than enough to carry the
additional heat from the heat exchanger.
I will be using a somewhat modified scheme: I use a radiator and a heat
exchanger in series. The radiator is 50% smaller and is used to pre-cool
the oil. Then the oil goes through the heat exchanger. In winter this
warms up the oil, and in summer it provides additional cooling. During
winter flying and summer cruising I anticipate that the oil radiator is
not necessary so I will close it with a flap to minimize drag.
Some other Europa flyers are in the process of converting to a more
efficient cooling scheme with a heat exchanger as well, but I will let
them speak for themselves if they want to. Most of them intent to fly on
the heat exchanger exclusively and leave the radiator completely out.
Compared to an oil thermostat I feel that the failure potential is less,
and it also offers more potential to minimize drag. After all it is
somewhat ineffcient to drag air through a radiator while you don't want
to cool the oil at all and have the thermostat closed at the same time!
And I can already tell you from experience that removing the oil
radiator from the cooling duct does wonders to the cooling capacity of
the water radiator, and solves all cooling problems instantly.
Frans
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