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Message
The pressure differential driving the water from the engine
block heater outlet to the rad inlet is the pressure drop from half way through
the engine to the rad inlet. Although this is enough to cause some flow;
it is likely quite a bit less than the pressure drop across the rad. By
returning the heater flow downstream from the rad, you take advantage of the
larger pressure drop and get more flow through the heater. Or is this
stuff you already know, and I missed the point here?
Yeah, I understand, but
I don't see why Mazda did it the way they did on the 1st gen heat
exchangers. Maybe Bruce was mistaken. His wife just had a baby the
night before, so maybe he wasn't thinking straight :-)
One of the difficulties with the oil-water heat exchanger built into the
radiator is that they are designed for piston engines where the heating of the
oil is more incidental; it is not one of the cooling fluids as it is in the
rotary, so the heat rejection capacity is significantly less.
Roger, that's why I had
them install two. I knew it was the only chance I had of making it
work. For the record, they had never even considered installing two
heat exchangers on a radiator before mine.
When I get the proper oil temp sensor
installed later this week, I'll find out if the current arrangement is
sufficient. From what I've heard, I feel like it's probably very close,
and it sure doesn't get much hotter than it has been recently, so maybe I
can make it work with some modification. It will be nice
when I can use some of those spare ports in my radiator tanks to measure
the water temps at various points. Unfortunately, my cockpit is littered
with temporary gauges already. When the EM-2 arrives (someone has to
keep whining about it <g>), I'll be able to use some of the
current gauges for testing.
Cheers,
Rusty
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