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Cooling shroud on fuel pump

Adam W

Well Known Member
Hello all

I have an iO-360 lyc.
It was suggested that I install a cooling shroud and blast tube for the mechanical fuel pump. I was wondering what the popular vote is on this. I know my previous certified planes did not have this. I?d prefer not to steal any cooling air for this if not necessary
 
It's hot here in Texas, but I haven't used a cooling shroud. 1000 hours, no problems. YMMV.
 
Are you having a problem?

I have measured some fuel flow temps (-7) and the pump does add some temp, but not as much as the tunnel.

EDIT: No - After my measurements I don't think you will have an issue. At low fuel flows high altitude I have seen some wandering of FF down at 6GPH so measured the temps. I have a 4-into1 exhaust that is close to the firewall and believe most of the temperature rise is in the tunnel. While cooling the MFP might help, that would not be the root cause on a 7. Your installation may vary.
 
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I haven?t had problems because I?m not flying yet. Still building
Just wondering the feedback on weather or not the cooling shroud was necessary
 
We have about a dozen RV's on the field at BFC (CNC3) both injected and carb'd. None have the pump shroud and I am not aware of any in-flight vapour lock issues.
 
I don't have a shroud on the fuel pump on my O-360.

The only time I wish I had one was last summer when it was in the high 90's, almost 100, and I got stuck behind a long line of planes waiting to take off with a BUNCH of planes landing and ATC wasn't moving the planes as fast as they could. We were stuck in line for propbably 20 minutes. It was like stop and go traffic. As soon as I was reaching for the mixture to shut it down, the line would move forward one plane length.

The engine died and took a bit to get started again. It acted just like a fuel injected engine with a hot restart and a student pilot.

In close to a thousand hours, that is the only time it has ever happened.

Even with that experience, I have never considered adding a shroud around the pump. Around the gascolator yes, but not around the pump. Even then, I haven't done it because it was such an odd thing.
 
I installed a pump shroud on my RV-10 because I burned auto pump gas on occasion and did not want to risk vapor lock. I took a lot of care keeping the fuel delivery lines as cool as possible and never had a vapor lock issue. Can't say it helped or not. Put one on my -9A also for the same reason.
 
No shroud on my -7A in SE Georgia. I occasionally get a low pressure warning during cruise, which the boost pump on, for a few seconds, corrects.
 
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