| Last Sept. I purchased Dennis Haverlah’s well proven RV-7A with Renesis, that he brought to a Tracy Rotary Fest in 2007. I have now flown it for 65+ hrs. and one point I wanted to address was slightly high oil temperatures when climbing out on a hot Summer day. This summer I had to take action by lowering power (MAP 20), and the nose (climb at 120+ MPH) on 85 degree + days, so while doing the annual condition inspection decided to try to fix that.
I recently purchased a Superior IO-360 from an insurance company and that came with a Niagara 7 row oil filter, so I decided to add that in series after the Mazda cooler, and before the oil filter.
After installing the radiator and a longer -8 hose (connecting it to the oil filter pad), I got the modeling clay out to create a plenum and glass in an intake scoop. Finally flew it today and was pleased to see what had been oil temps running from 187 - 205, to now be more in the range of 160-170 ( cruise). I performed a full power climb from 1200 to 5500 ft. and saw the oil stabilize at 183 degrees, where before I would have been reducing power and lowering the nose by 3500 ft. since oil temps would have gone to 210 or so!
An unintended consequence of the lower oil temps, is that I noticed that my water temps also dropped by about 10 degrees. In the past when cruising around the temps would settle between 145 and 165 degrees, while today it was between 130 and 135 degrees! So is there a thermo dynamic reason why lowering oil temps would also pull down the water side as well?
Bottom line is I never dreamed improving oil temps would create a “sympathy” response o note water side… :)
Fly safe,
Doug RV-7A Renesis 983.2 hrs.
|