Cabin heat from oil cooler.

svyolo

svyolo

Junior Member
I have a roughed in cabin heat manifold for the back of my cooler. I have a RV-10 style mount so it was more complicated than one hanging off the baffles. It will slide in, L to R side and be held in place with sheet metal tabs. I have 2 2" heater outlets, and one 3" butterfly valve outlet valve to control oil temps. The 3 have about the same outlet area as the 4" inlet. I haven't tried it yet.

Making a simple manifold from a baffle hung cooler would be pretty simple. I will also be putting one on the Tailwind I bought if this works.
 
Here is the roughed in manifold. It is currently not a thing of beauty.
 

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One trick with composites for very complex parts is to use smaller pieces/strips to build up parts. There is no way to mold something that complex in one piece. It started out as a pink foam mold, and I just built it up with pieces.

Another tip is to use "Twill" fabric. You can get both CF and fiberglass Twill. Twill CF is normally the outer layer for cosmetic purposes but it molds around complex pieces a lot better than straight weave. Fiberglass Twill is what I used for this piece.
 
This is a clever design.

I currently fly behind a rotax and we currently run lines from the water cooler through the firewall into a small secondary radiator with an attached fan for heating the cockpit. It’s extremely effective during the Utah winters. I’ve tried brainstorming a system for my Companion that did this with oil lines instead of a heat muff system. Any thoughts on this?
 
Have-Purple said:
This is a clever design.

I currently fly behind a rotax and we currently run lines from the water cooler through the firewall into a small secondary radiator with an attached fan for heating the cockpit. It’s extremely effective during the Utah winters. I’ve tried brainstorming a system for my Companion that did this with oil lines instead of a heat muff system. Any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
This is an experiment, but I have heard of others using it. Experience with old air cooled VW's has me wary of air to air exhaust heat exchangers.

We will see if it is successful.
 
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