Cabin heat with an Aerovee - another approach

[BobDz]

Success!

[Bryan Cotton]

Success!

Success, but not victory. Victory is needing to shut down cabin heat some to be comfortable. If I can get the oil temp back to 160-180, I think I will achieve victory.

Good thing you have all those lakes around you to moderate the temperatures, so you will never need to go through this.

[BobDz]

Success!

Good thing you have all those lakes around you to moderate the temperatures, so you will never need to go through this.

The lakes do not appear to be doing their job. It was -10 when crazy puppy and I went for our walk this morning.

[Bryan Cotton]

I'm trying to get my temperatures up some more. Here I am blocking off a portion of the outlet. This is what I made:

Screenshot_20240117-211259-130.png (389.37 KiB) Viewed 778 times

It picks up the lower hinge pin and then installs with one screw.

Screenshot_20240117-211318-498.png (405.9 KiB) Viewed 778 times

[Bryan Cotton]

I flew for an hour today. 16F out, oil temp was 165. Sufficient but some room for improvement.

[Bryan Cotton]

Flew 0.6 today, I think it was -2F on the ground (edit: metar history shows 2-6F). I added this additional blockoff to the cowl exit:

Screenshot_20240119-211421-766.png (637.63 KiB) Viewed 635 times

Climbed to 4500', oil temp stabilized at 165 in cruise. During descent it came down to 155, either if I dove to a higher airspeed or pulled power back. Down by my feet the temperature read 48, and was about 38F on the seat. CHTs were 160-170. They were over 200F in climb.

I also pulled off the orange electrical tape from the wing roots. That tape is a few years old and is shot. I re-taped it with wider 1" tape and reduced the air leaks considerably. I think I'm declaring success. We are going to fly tomorrow and it is supposed to get to 20 as the day's high. I'm leaving the blockoff configuration as is and I'm predicting 185-190F oil temps. If it gets too hot it is only one screw to step down in the blockoff of the outlet, to the prior configuration.

Edit: This new plate screws to the prior plate I showed with 1 screw. The first plate now has a nutplate. The new one hooks onto the hinge pin near the center, where there are no hinge loops. Otherwise it rests on the inside of the cowl sort of. I drilled 3 large clearance holes for the rivets that install the first plate to the hinge. So if it is hot, I can land and remove the new plate with one screw and the original plate is still there.