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ECI EXP cylinder baffles

Having installed and transferred a number of tapered cylinder engines in the past 24 months, probably a dozen or so engines, I take a very simple route. A stock Vans baffle. I drill a second hole on the flange for the safety wire that is close to the cylinder base. This puts 2 holes in each flange. One in the middle at the stock hole location from the factory, and the other, a new hole, couple inches closer to the cylinder base. I use both holes, and safety wire, to pull the baffles together underneath. This gets ~90% of the coverage needed. Then simply using a flashlight, and high temp rtv, I fill in the gaps using a popsicle stick to get the rtv where I need it.
 
I am not sure all the effort was worth it, but the new baffle wrap pieces did rivet in place without problems, except I had to re make the number 4 wrap as the angle across the wrap was not quite right, causing it to wander off the fins a bit. There are many angles that have to be correct for these things to fit!

They do close up the gaps and all the air will be channeled through the fins, which was my goal. That and getting all the gaps small enough that sealing up with silicone will be easier.

Anyway, I got it done and I am happy with the end results. Making the wraps was no easy task for me and my scrap pile is evidence of this:)

The effort involved is probably not worth it to most people as there are other easier routes to take, but I have had some extra focus on this engine install on having the best cooling I can reasonably get to help deal with AZ summer temps.

Randall in Sedona
 
Pics

Here are a couple pictures of the parts I got from UpNorthAviation. We'll be bending them and preparing to install them this weekend.

2015-01-09%2009.43.47-S.jpg


2015-01-09%2009.43.57-S.jpg


Email me if you want a copy of the CAD file.
 
Those cylinders are crying for silicone wraps and composite backing.

VW's have similar tapered cylinders. These baffles should have exit lips, but the picture should serve to crank your idea machine.


Dan,
Those look good! I made my head wraps out of two layers of BID impregnated with JB weld in a typical layup. Used an old head for a mold. While researching for high temp epoxy I found JB weld is good to 550° and the result is paintable, unlike silicone. Then a very thin layer of clear RTV on the inside and it sticks well to the cylinder fins.

 
I made my head wraps out of two layers of BID impregnated with JB weld in a typical layup. Used an old head for a mold. While researching for high temp epoxy I found JB weld is good to 550? and the result is paintable, unlike silicone. Then a very thin layer of clear RTV on the inside and it sticks well to the cylinder fins.

Very interesting. Gonna give somebody at Titan a heart attack ;)

The VW baffles are not mine, but I am building a mold for some right now.
 
How did the pieces work out?

Not that well. I ended up cutting them in two and then doing a lot of bending and fitting. One problem is the curve of the stock baffle is "as formed" and not in the same curvature as when on the plane with the baffles pulled up tight with the tension rods. I am concerned I will get cracking someday due to the tension rods fighting against the closeouts that are riveted in.

They work, but there has to be a better way. Probably quite a few. I wish I could have found a spare Eci cylinder somewhere to use as a pattern to pre-form the baffle parts so the geometry would match up better.

On the bright side, I have about 1 hour on the new baffles and they are cooling well.
 
Very interesting. Gonna give somebody at Titan a heart attack ;)

The VW baffles are not mine, but I am building a mold for some right now.

Yes this baffle design would raise the stress levels here, except the cylinders appear to be our competitors. They look to be designed like the reverse flow updraft cooling system used in a Vari-eze. I would be very interested in how well this design works once it has flown.
 
I read through this thread previously and had planned to make the baffle wrap end caps on my ECI cylinders, but really wanted to have baffle wraps that make contact with the cylinders all the way around, just like they are supposed to be. My idea is to cut off the old straight baffle wraps and rivet new ones in their place. I plan to use flush rivets, mainly because I think the nested dimples with add strength to the riveted joints, hopefully 4 1/8th" rivets on each wrap.

...

IMG_0681_zps0614be5b.jpg


...

Like I said above, this will not be considered a success until they get riveted in position, and then see how they do over time. They do close up the gaps to a point where putting some silicone in the remaining gaps will be a much easier to accomplish.

Randall in Sedona

Randy,

I like this solution. Have you riveted these on yet? Would love to see photos of them in place.

Thanks,
Russ
 
Updating this old thread...

I went with Randy's idea. I really like how they turned out.

DSC02345.jpg

Used manila folder material to build a template

DSC023421.jpg

Cut the original cylinder baffles off

DSC02351.jpg

Transferred to aluminum sheet, cut out, bent and riveted back on

DSC023541.jpg

Top view

DSC02394.jpg

Another one
 
Do any of you have a CAD drawing of the aluminum baffle wrap, as depicted above?

If not can one of you mail me your templates so I can render them and make the drawings available as a PDF?
 
N941WR ,

I'll see if I can dig mine up. Please PM me your address and I'll shoot 'em off to you.

Regards,
Russ
 
Be sure to put a circle or two known length lines orthogonally to ensure the printed parts are the same dimensions. All printers are not scaled the same.
 
Be sure to put a circle or two known length lines orthogonally to ensure the printed parts are the same dimensions. All printers are not scaled the same.

I have just scanned them and had a machinist ruler in the scans for just that purpose. However, I doubt these will be so accurate that by the time they are measured with a micrometer, marked with chalk, and cut with an axe that it will really matter.

In other words, they will need to be hand fitted.
 
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Baffle templates

I'm interested as well if there are pdf's of the templates. Thanks for doing the work on this!

Robert
 
The templates are available.

I have asked Doug to post them on the VAF site but if you need them right now, just drop me a note with your email address and I will be happy to forward them to you.
 
IO-375 Baffles

This thread is a little old. Is this still the best solution for the baffles when using ECI tappered fin cylinders? I'm looking at an IO-375 as a possibility and I'm wondering how much additional work I'm signing myself up for.
 
Tapered fins

were a lot more time consuming to baffle, at least for me. I actually am experimenting with the baffle system using conic sections wrapped around the inner cylinder areas, instead of the simple plates. No idea if it will work well, as the engine has not run yet.

I suspect I spent several weeks implementing the inner cylinder baffle system alone.
 
I didn't think it was that much work and I started from scratch. Using the templates linked in an earlier message in this thread will make it pretty easy.
 
You should be fine.

It took making a good template out of drafting plastic, but other than an extra few hours it went well. We wanted the lighter jugs with the valve seats and guides of those cylinders on our IOX-360. The lower baffle has worked out well and we really like the extra air flow from the valves and some porting work we did. It is worth the little more time as far as I am concerned.
Hope this helps, Yours, R.E.A. III # 80888
 
Does anyone have any pics of the results of these PDF modifications? Since I'm not quite at the stage of installing the baffles it's hard for me to visualize the transformation from the flat template form.
 
Taper fin inter-cylinder baffles

As The ECI links are defunct from the earlier posts I?m wondering if Continental supplies the inter-cylinder baffle assemblies for the taper fin barrels. If anybody has used them ( if they exist ) how well did they fit ? Any help is appreciated.
 
Call or E-mail.

As The ECI links are defunct from the earlier posts I?m wondering if Continental supplies the inter-cylinder baffle assemblies for the taper fin barrels. If anybody has used them ( if they exist ) how well did they fit ? Any help is appreciated.

The guy to ask this question of would be James Ball at Titan "a.k.a." E.C.I., Conty. The good guys from San Antonio have moved to Al.
Hope this helps. Yours, R.E.A. III # 80888
 
I did my own

As The ECI links are defunct from the earlier posts I?m wondering if Continental supplies the inter-cylinder baffle assemblies for the taper fin barrels. If anybody has used them ( if they exist ) how well did they fit ? Any help is appreciated.

David,

I think I have the ECi baffle mod file at home on my computer. PM me and I?ll send it to you tomorrow if you want it. I did not end up using their solution. I ended up wrapping the lower cylinder fins in RTV impregnated fiberglass (as several other VAFers have done) and using the existing baffles essentially just to hold the cylinder wraps in place. The only other ?seal? I had to add was at the upper interface between the existing baffles and the wraps to make sure all of the cooling air is directed between the wraps and the fins (and not leaking around the outside surface of the wraps).

There is another solution (I believe in this thread) where a builder fabricated baffle segments that would fit the tapered sections, then cut off the existing baffle segments and riveted on the new ones. Very elegant, but the cylinder wrap method looked easier and just as effective. I did use the Drawing the other builder posted as part of his solution as a cutout template for the cylinder wraps.
 
David,

I think I have the ECi baffle mod file at home on my computer. PM me and I?ll send it to you tomorrow if you want it. I did not end up using their solution. I ended up wrapping the lower cylinder fins in RTV impregnated fiberglass (as several other VAFers have done) and using the existing baffles essentially just to hold the cylinder wraps in place. The only other ?seal? I had to add was at the upper interface between the existing baffles and the wraps to make sure all of the cooling air is directed between the wraps and the fins (and not leaking around the outside surface of the wraps).

There is another solution (I believe in this thread) where a builder fabricated baffle segments that would fit the tapered sections, then cut off the existing baffle segments and riveted on the new ones. Very elegant, but the cylinder wrap method looked easier and just as effective. I did use the Drawing the other builder posted as part of his solution as a cutout template for the cylinder wraps.

Hi Jason,

It would be interesting to see some pictures of how you did your cylinder wraps. Can you please post some pictures or email them directly to me.

Thanks,
Mark
TreeTopFlyer33 at the gmail dot com
 
ECI Tapered Cylinder Baffle Drawings not correct

I appreciate the templates produced for this solution....but...it seems several are backward.
here: http://www.prettybits.com/files/Tape...nental-ECi.pdf
Was very careful following directions. #3 is a good example. The double bend makes the taper go the wrong direction. Similar problem on #2. Further proof are pics earlier in this thread from a hand drawn templates and produced parts that appear the correct/ opposite orientation. Haven?t fully checked the other two yet. I?ll be better at it second time around. It could be the wording, ?this side toward cylinder? on the templates causing the issue.

Anyone else run into this?
 
Yep, some were backwards

I appreciate the templates produced for this solution....but...it seems several are backward.
here: http://www.prettybits.com/files/Tape...nental-ECi.pdf
Was very careful following directions. #3 is a good example. The double bend makes the taper go the wrong direction. Similar problem on #2. Further proof are pics earlier in this thread from a hand drawn templates and produced parts that appear the correct/ opposite orientation. Haven?t fully checked the other two yet. I?ll be better at it second time around. It could be the wording, ?this side toward cylinder? on the templates causing the issue.

Anyone else run into this?

You are correct. I had to re-do some because they were backwards!
 
Interesting... I didn't run into this issue since, obviously, I built mine from my hand drawn versions.

If Bill sees this, maybe he can correct the PDF file. I can then update the hosted version on my website.
 
Interesting... I didn't run into this issue since, obviously, I built mine from my hand drawn versions.

If Bill sees this, maybe he can correct the PDF file. I can then update the hosted version on my website.

Dang, good help is hard to find!

I will correct them and forward them to you once I correct them.
 
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No problem at, happy to make the corrections. It is hard to believe we put that together three years ago!

Rick and Sean, can you two look over the corrections and verify they are accurate?

Thanks!
 
Bill,

I just saw a minor issue where one of the 1/8? holes is dimensioned incorrectly. It looks like the center mark is off center resulting in the error.
 
Bill,

I just saw a minor issue where one of the 1/8? holes is dimensioned incorrectly. It looks like the center mark is off center resulting in the error.
Ray,

Thanks for pointing that out. I have corrected the drawings and passed them on to Ross for posting.

The exact location of those holes is not critical; however, the hole size of ".036" on cylinder baffle #4 was flat out wrong and has been changed to "1/8". (I'm not exactly sure how I did that and how it past my exacting QA process.)

Hopefully everyone is verifying the dimensions before cutting. The issue is that each printer will print a slightly different size. That's the reason for including an image of my machinist ruler on each image. If your images match that, then you should be "OK".

I hope those templates are helpful.
 
Bill, Thanks for producing these and making subsequent corrections. Just looking at the latest appears correct. I am in the process of making these again and will reference your latest drawings to verify, then report back. I?m thinking of not drilling the offset attach holes in the beginning, so I can investigate if these share any existing holes that can be match drilled, then add the others. This will also allow me to make sure the angle of my bend aligns with the cylinder, then drill to lock that position.

Thanks again for producing these templates. It?ll save time and produce a better result than I would have on my own.
 
Bill, Thanks for producing these and making subsequent corrections. Just looking at the latest appears correct. I am in the process of making these again and will reference your latest drawings to verify, then report back. I?m thinking of not drilling the offset attach holes in the beginning, so I can investigate if these share any existing holes that can be match drilled, then add the others. This will also allow me to make sure the angle of my bend aligns with the cylinder, then drill to lock that position.

Thanks again for producing these templates. It?ll save time and produce a better result than I would have on my own.

Sean,

PM your email address and I'll send you the latest copy that I updated this morning. (Russ will post them later, I'm sure.)

That way you can make sure they are correct.

The rivet holes where they attach were just spaced manually and are up to the builder to drill to fit their needs.

I recommend you use flush rivets against the baffle side, so there will be no chance of interference.
 
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