Oil Coolers - New style vs old

by John Walsh in 912 / 914 Technical Questions 3 years ago

I'm thinking about replacing my oil cooler. Via some searches, it seems like Rotax has improved the design of them.

Does anyone have any details? My plane currently has the older Rotax small oil cooler installed. I have space under the cowl to switch to the "medium" sized one, but if the newer "small" version cools substantially better, it would be easier to just replace it.

I was flying in hot weather recently and during the climb, the oil temp reached 250F. It eventually cooled off to 230F in cruise. For my aircraft 250F is in the green arc, but ideally I'd rather have better cooling.

thanks for any info or advice.

John

Re: Oil Coolers - New style vs old

by Garrett Wysocki » 3 years ago

Garrett Wysocki

1 572 1.45k

My aircraft had similar issues in hot weather. I replaced the small cooler with the large oil cooler and added the Thermostasis oil temperature thermostat and never had an oil temp issue again along with very fast oil warmup time. One of the best upgrades I did to my plane. You can also just add a second cooler inline with the first cooler if you have space issues.

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/eppages/xcomthermostat.php?clickkey=4981042

Thank you said by: John Walsh

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Re: Oil Coolers - New style vs old

by John Walsh » 3 years ago

John Walsh

12 38 49

Thanks. Good to know. I think I will do the upgrade.

It looks like though that the "newer" style oil coolers have more fins than the "older" versions. Did anyone get any data on how much cooler the new versions are versus the older one? I had seen some discussions from 2016 on other websites, but could not find any conclusions. I figure if for example, the "new" small cooler was 20% more efficient than the "old" small cooler, that might be the easiest option for me.

-John

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Oil Coolers - New style vs old

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