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Liquid cooled engines

Thebert

Member
I came across these liquid cooled series of cylinders that AC aero is doing and wondering if anyone has done this mod or looked into it?

I love the idea of being able to liquid cool the aircraft for an extra source of heat in the winter and keep a nice consistent temperature in a climate with cold nights of -40 C/F and summer days of 30-40C (80-100+F)

https://www.ac-aero.com/gladiator/
 
details

The devil is always in the details...you can't just put liquid cooled cylinders on and go. You need to have a viable cooling system as well...

Watching these guys closely, though.
 
They were pitted next to us last year at Reno, the plane was doing fairly well until they had a problem (fuel system as I recall----nothing to do with the cylinders) and had to scratch.

Very nice looking parts and machine work, hope all goes well for them in the future.

Lots of potential there.
 
We have a customer planning to install our EFI on one of these engines soon. Will try to follow up on that as it progresses. Cool kit, pun intended. ;)
 
That would depend on what aircraft model you are thinking. An RV-8 would be hard not to place it P-51 style on the belly.
RV-15 I’d lean towards something on the top of the cowl so the rad fins are protected from off airport debris.
 
Step Into the Wayback Machine, Sherman

I recall somebody showing a liquid-cooled Lycoming powered Cherokee conversion at an air show in Camarillo CA about 30-odd years ago. It looked like they added water jackets to stock Lyc cylinders and they were selling kits. If I recollect rightly, they added a radiator at the back of the engine room. No idea what ever became of them. My 2 cents (and worth every penny) is that a liquid-cooled airplane makes as much sense as an air-cooled submarine, at least as far as our relatively small and low powered engines go. I’m aware of the advantages, but in the Grand Scheme of things I believe the tradeoff doesn’t pay. Too much weight and complexity.
BTW, I just finished reading “The Secret Horsepower Race” by Calume E. Douglas. It’s a very long and detailed history of the development of engines for fighter aircraft just before and during WWII, by all sides, including some discussion of air versus liquid cooling for very high power piston engines. The book is tedious at times, but covers all the things folks don’t often consider, like material shortages, fuels, politics, personalities… all that jazz.
 
In 1987 Continental developed their liquid cooled Voyager series of 4 cylinder and 6 cylinder liquid cooled engines. Why "Voyager" you ask? The rear engine of Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager's that powered the Voyager around the world non- stop and un-refueled was a Continental IOL-200 liquid cooled 4-cylinder with a BSFC of .375 #/HP.

https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/871042/

deliveryService
 
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What ever happened to their ACE air cooled cylinders? The ports were amazing.. I just don’t know how their aluminum walls held up without sleeves..
 
The AC-Aero cylinders have much better ports and chambers than legacy Lycoming cylinders permitting higher CRs and VE which equals more power, less chance of detonation, better SFCs.
 
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