Berni,

There have been at least 4 designs on this project.  My oil cooler like
Lee's is located in front of #2 cylinder.  The firewall mounting
location has had at least three different air intake locations that I'm
aware of (left or right cowl with naca scoop, or off the aft baffles).
The better of these three air cooling feeds I'm told is air off the
right side of the cowl.  Don Goetz told me once that most of the left
side cowl guys placed their Naca scoop in a dead zone.  Additionally, I
was once told that propwash was better on the right side than the left.
Don't know if that's true, however.  The angle to the relative airflow
could also be very important.  For example if your climb angle is
roughly 7 deg nose up then I'd suggest the scoop should point down about
7 deg to optimize climb cooling.  One benefit of this location is
structural integrity.  Attaching to the firewall is less stressful on
the engine mount than my installation.

Bottom line:  I love the in front of # 2 cylinder oil cooler location.
It does require healthy bracketry to handle the G's and vibration.  On
my 360 I see vernatherm temp (83C) for 90% of my flights.  In climb I
occasionally see 95C.  During racing I've never seen over 102C.

I suspect you’re A&P is correct.  That is, the size of the cooler is
adequate.  However, your intake airflow could probably be optimized.

Finally, don't look to live in the Green Arc of oil temps in an LNC2. On
a hot day you will get into the yellow band for 10-20 minutes following
climb out.  Also, prolonged gear down operation will drive the oil
through the high limits.  If one wanted green arc operation in all
flight regimes we'd find oil cooling drag excessively performance
limiting.  The plane is a pearl in most flight regimes.  Unlike the spam
can world there are occasionally flight regimes that require pilot
insight (airmanship).

Good luck in your analysis.

Larry Henney
LNC2 IO-360
Ft Worth, TX