O-360 oil cooler in RV-4

For those who have installed an O-360 in a RV-4, where have you put the oil cooler. I had mine up front with an O-320 but doesn't look like the bigger oil cooler will work there and not a lot of room behind number 3 cylinder .

I did mine like G-IKON

I like the way Steve did it too. I will try that.

mine is on the left rear cyl. there is plenty of room for it. Mine is angled back about 15 degrees from vertical, sam james told me their tests showed that there was straighter air flow if you mount it that way. stays nice and cool so i guess he was right.

bob burns
RV-4 N82RB

Cool it!

rvator51 said:

For those who have installed an O-360 in a RV-4, where have you put the oil cooler. I had mine up front with an O-320 but doesn't look like the bigger oil cooler will work there and not a lot of room behind number 3 cylinder .

Click to expand...

Hey Tom,
I've helped several guys install coolers on 0-360 RV4's. Here are 2 threads that pretty much cover all the options.
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=21483
Thread 2:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=19960

V/R
Smokey

PS: On my RV4 I simply mounted my cooler aft of the left rear baffle onto the engine mount with adell clamps and fabricated a duct similar to this one:

Oil cooler behind #4

There is no point in a bunch of complexities. My RV-4 with an 0-360 has lived very comfortably with the oil cooler attached behind cylinder #4 for nearly 20 years. You beef up everything and angle the standard Van's oil cooler with a wedge and there is no interference with the cowl. Originally a Swedish- made Setrab did a good job keeping the temperatures in line. About 4 years ago I changed to a Van's Stewart Warner style oil cooler, just because I had one on hand. They both work fine, but if there is an advantage the Setrab possibly cooled the oil a little better.

Jake Thiessen
Independence, OR

This is a photo of another builders oil cooler solution which I copied exactly. It has a plenum so that air can reach all of the cooler fins.

Fit oil cooler after fitting cowl

I used a James cowl and a 4" prop extension, a combination that "squeezes" the cheeks down to a smaller height toward the back of the cowl. Fitting the oil cooler behind the #3 cylinder required some very careful fitting. The moral of the story is to consider fitting the cowl before permanently installing the oil cooler, or you may run into clearance problems.

For what it's worth, my cheeks didnt have enough space to mount the cooler vertically. I mounted my oil cooler to the engine mount behind the cylinder, with the face of the oil cooler about 15 degrees from horizontal (not vertical). A carefully formed rubber duct directs air from a cutout in the rear cylinder baffle to the face of the oil cooler, and a homemade fiberglass exhaust duct directs airflow from the oil cooler down toward the cowl outlet. Works great on my O-320. Requires partial blocking most of the year to achieve 180 degrees.

Foka4 - any pictures? If so would you share a few? I always like to see how people innovate in this area.

Pic

I don't have a photo that includes the final installation including the exhaust duct, but the construction photo below shows the installed position of the oil cooler (rigidly attached to engine mount) and the rubber inlet duct.




Note that in my installation, the cheek of the James cowl really limits the plenum height above the rear cylinders. (I think this is common when using the James cowl in conjunction with a 4" prop extension.)

The low clearance over the cylinder necessitated the creation of a duct that's "short and fat" at the rear cylinder baffle, and "long and skinny" at the inlet of the oil cooler. I used sheet metal design techniques to lay out a baffle opening and rubber duct to maximize flow in the space available and provide a reasonably smooth transition. In terms of operating temps, I'm really happy with the result. The rubber duct has held up perfectly over two years and 250 hours.

The exhaust duct (not shown) collects the hot exhaust air and dumps it out in front of the lower firewall.

Thanks for all the great ideas and pictures! I went from not sure what to do to having several good options for the oil cooler.