Do you have any pics of the 13 row cooler installed on the rear baffle? I've thought about changing my own coolers but can't see how such a big opening in the rear baffle could work. How are your oil temps on a hot day?
lets not talk about the oil cooler on the baffle
...... ah heck, why not, maybe some will learn from my mistakes..... so.....the story goes like this.
when we got the plane the baffles were terrible, badly made, gaps of over an inch square and we immediately struggled with temps from the moment we took her out of the container and put the wings on.... time pressure was on and we had a small window to ferry her up to Botswana, luckily it was the start of winter and temps were cool a cool 70ºF... so my plane partner flew her up and then grounded the plane till we had fixed the baffles.... I ordered a set of IO360 baffles from VANS and they arrived.....then the cowls came off and the baffle fitting began.....till now the oil cooler had been up front under cyl #2 and we were struggling with oil temps and with cyl #2 temps......so the old 10 row oil cooler came off with the old baffles, while the fitting of the back baffle plate was started the oil dipstick kept getting in the way so it got taken out and plugged with a temporary plastic plug..... this is about the time I arrived on the scene... and I got stuck in with gusto, we prepared the baffles, got them all built up and shaped and fiddled and faffed and then fiddled and then faffed....you all know how it goes. then one evening I was trying to figure out how we were going to do the oil cooler, I was walking around the engine (no cowls on) with the new 13 row cooler in my hand and found a wonderful spot behind cyl #3 where the oil cooler fitted in snugly between the baffle, cowl and engine mount......it was like it was MADE for a 13 row cooler..... so I suggested we put it there and all got busy busy busy and we fitted it..... then came the end of the project where you start figuring out what do to with the handful of left over nuts and bolts that were supposed to go into the project and what you had missed and it struck me that one of these items was the oil dipstick tube.....which now no longer fit in because there was a great big damn 13 row oil cooler in the way :evil:
but by now I had a serious case of "gottoflythisdamnplanerightnoworiamgonnadie" so we made a plan with a short oil dipstick that is a SON OF A beautiful old lady to use and check oil but hey.... it works for now..... end of story....
I have been quite happy with the oil temps since we have put this oil cooler in though, highest I have seen is 208 (at 105ºF OAT for a couple of hours flying) and normally when temps are around 95 oil temp will sit at around 190-195
remember though that we aren't able to lean much at these high temps because our CHT's then go over 400 which we dont like.
so we are considering 2 different options:
1. fit the oil cooler back below cyl#2, but about 4 inches lower than it was before and with a better opening scoop (before it was directly on the front skin of the cowl and we dont think it was getting clean airflow through).....but....even though we have a kit from BCSC for this it is going to be a mission as our starter motor is different to the BCSC IO390 starter so we will need to modify the brackets significantly. - also this puts the weight of the oil cooler up front which the REV2 doesn't like, it likes a light nose..
2. fit a carbon scoop where the oil cooler is currently that feeds into a 4" SCAT tube, this should allow the oil dipstick enough space to be fitted again, and mount the oil cooler on the firewall lower down where there is space.
both options have their challenges, I am worried that we won't get enough air through the 4" SCAT tube to maintain the oil temps we want.
here are some pics of our oil cooler behind cyl#3, note the re-inforcements on the back baffle to carry the cooler.
so its real easy for me to point a finger and say "but I wasn't there when they took the oil dipstick off" but I think its more important to learn from my mistake and learn to make sure that I FIRST take a look at all the parts when doing something and make sure I have a plan for ALL of the parts..... we live and learn