Re: REFLECTOR: Oil temperature

[aegerter@dataway.ch (Simon Aegerter)]

Hi, Gilles!

Thanks for the informative and detailed report. Here are my thoughts about
some of your points:

First let me commend you for having taken the temp measurements at the
cooler. You may be the first one that did! I have never gotten around doing
it but had planned to do it on my next stay. So now we KNOW something.

Interestingly, I made the same observation you did about the CHTs: too cool
while the oil was too hot. I too "stole" some air fom the scoops to help
cool the oil pan.

Your observation that the oil pan is a great cooler is correct; nothing has
done more to improve the cooling in my case than getting more air to the
oil pan. However, I didn't do it with a plenum.  You need not only a way to
get air TO the pan, it also needs a way out. For that I removed the glass
stiffener at the end of the lower cowling and replaced it with 3 bid of
flat carbon. Great improvement!

As to your "brute force" method with the 36psi spring - I'd like to caution
you. The oil pump (or more exactly its pressure valve) delivers just so
much pressure. If you take more of it to force feed the oil to the cooler,
less pressure is available to force it through the engine. So, you may be
cooling your oil nicely, but you don't get enough of it to do what it is
primarely supposed to do: lubricating. I think the fatter oil lines are a
must. The fact that the fittings are still 1/2" doesn't invalidate the
argument.

Please keep us posted! and enjoy those test flights!

Best
Simon

Simon Aegerter, Winterthur, Switzerland