Mailing List flyrotary@lancaironline.net Message #1183
From: <13brv3@mchsi.com>
Sender: Marvin Kaye <marv@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Oil cooler in the radiator?
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 17:17:47 -0500
To: <flyrotary>
Message
OK guys, now that I've got the silly cooling stuff out of my system for now, I'm looking at a custom radiator.  It's a little too soon to be able to finalize the sizing, but it looks like I'll end up having an 18 X 18.5 X 2.5 core, with tanks fore and aft.  This will be an all aluminum, two row, 1" tube core.  
 
My current question, is about oil/water heat exchangers.  It seems that I've read where someone tried this, and gave up on it, but I can't think of who that was, or how hard they tried to make it work.  In other words, did they just try an existing auto trans cooler, or did they have something special built.  Does anyone know any specifics?
 
I can have an engine oil heat exchanger installed in the radiator pretty easily, but of course it's impossible to say if it would do the job.  The Howe racing folks say they feel the exchanger is better than what you would find in a stock radiator, and that racing folks use them without any problems.  Since rotary engines put more of a demand on an oil cooler,  I'm thinking of having two of their exchangers added to my radiator.  Unfortunately, both won't fit in one tank, so I'd have to put one in the inlet tank, and one in the outlet tank.  Strange as this sounds (Hey, I heard that <G>), it would give me the following options in order of effectiveness:
 
- use neither exchanger
- use the one in the inlet tank only
- use the one in the outlet tank only
- use both plumbed in series (technically two options here, but I'd figure to plumb to inlet, then outlet tank)
- use both plumbed in parallel
 
Do you think this could work, or am I one wacky idea away from being voted out of the group :-)
 
 
Rusty
Turbo 13B powered RV-3 (experimental aircraft)...Be Afraid :-)
1993 RX-7 R1... Not stock, carry bail money :-)
 
 
PS- I played with the Henrob torch some more yesterday, and managed to turn some cast aluminum into slag.  Sure it was fun, but not the original goal.  Proper rods, flux, and instructional videos are now on order :-)
 
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