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Hi Rusty;
I couldn't help but notice the similarity of your flat plate heat exchanger
to a snowmobile heat exchanger. These are located inside the tunnel and have
snow thrown on them from the track. This is undoubtedly better than airflow,
but I've never had any cooling problems with 130hp. My previous sled had
shorter exchangers and had no problems cooling a 156hp triple. This picture
is from a Ski-Doo, and shows that they have small fins machined on one side.
While I'm not familiar with them I believe Arctic Cat used a smaller heat
exchanger located in the front of the tunnel, and I've not heard of any
complaints with their performance. Polaris also had a smaller set located
underneath the running boards that relied on snow thrown from the skis.
These did not work well in icy conditions as all they had was air contact
for cooling. This indicates that heat transfer to air from a flat plate is
inadequate. A long time ago I had a set of these removed while repairing a
bent tunnel and I recall that they seemed light, but I have no weight
figures for you.
While I personally have no interest on putting this idea on my plane, I can
imagine that 2 of the long heat exchangers used on my sled could be riveted
to the bottom of the fuselage and if effective would provide a very low drag
cooling solution. Why don't you try it and let me know how it works out ;-)
These are very durable, so leaks would not be any concern for you
whatsoever.
S. Todd Bartrim
Turbo 13B rotary powered
RV-9endurance (FWF)
C-FSTB
http://www3.telus.net/haywire/RV-9/C-FSTB.htm
"Imagination is more important than Knowledge"
-Albert Einstein
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