erich weaver
Well Known Member
I have never been completely satisfied with the Vans stock oil cooler (Niagra 20002A with 7 rows) that I installed on my RV-7A with IO-360B1B engine, as oil temps bumped right up against red line on long climbs on hot days. Finally did something about it recently, and worked with Bill at Airflow Systems to bump up to a larger and more efficient cooler. At Bill's suggestion, I went with his 2004X, a 10-row cooler with higher fin density. The difficulty of course is that it wont fit on the back left corner of the baffles, so installation requires an inlet plenum on the back of the baffles and another at the cooler, with some scat between the two. It took a couple of iterations to end up with this:
Please excuse the slightly messy RTV. We used 3.5 inch scat for connecting the two plenums. Also note that a small spacer (not visible in photos) was needed for the upper left adel clamp connection from the engine mount to the oil cooler because although the upper and lower engine mount tubes appear to both lie in the same plane, they do not, and the spacer provides the small correction needed.
I wont be able to fully test the new installation until summer when we get some hot days, but oil temps are definitely significantly reduced now, hanging around 180F. Down side is reduced accessibility to the accessory case, but removal of the oil cooler doesnt take long with this set up.
erich
Please excuse the slightly messy RTV. We used 3.5 inch scat for connecting the two plenums. Also note that a small spacer (not visible in photos) was needed for the upper left adel clamp connection from the engine mount to the oil cooler because although the upper and lower engine mount tubes appear to both lie in the same plane, they do not, and the spacer provides the small correction needed.
I wont be able to fully test the new installation until summer when we get some hot days, but oil temps are definitely significantly reduced now, hanging around 180F. Down side is reduced accessibility to the accessory case, but removal of the oil cooler doesnt take long with this set up.
erich
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