Watercooled Jabiru 2200

[Bell Driver]

Has anyone experience wilth Rotec aerosport water cooled heads for Jabiru 2200? Installed in Savannah VG ? Seeking consumer reports after seeing the ad in EAA Sport Aviation Magazine.

[Kenlsa]

These are a solution looking for a problem. While they do work, save your money, ensure you have a 38" pitch jab prop installed, service as per the manual and use the save cash for fuel! All good.

Ken

[Bell Driver]

Thanks for your thoughts. My A&P/ advisor is a strong advocate of watercooled. We're finishing up the restoration of a VG (though delayed by Virus restrictions) and are eager to improve where possible. Thought to explore this before completing the basic instrument panel. Love the way she flys--now if I can learn to land without coming to a hover...

[Yenn]

I did talk to someone who had fitted them and later removed them, saying they were no improvement. Sadly we cannot talk to him about it as he is no longer with and that is not due to engine failure.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Watercooled adds weight and complexity. Not long ago around here, a watercooled Rotax plane had to be rescued from miles away because it had a coolant leak. It was rescued by an air-cooled jabiru plane.

But I too agree that water ( we should say liquid ) cooled would sure be effective. If you decide to go ahead anyway, be very careful that the rotec heads you buy actually fit the motor. There have been changes to motors and I have heard of somebody getting a bad surprise.

[440032]

Agree - "A solution looking for a problem."

Me: 15 years and 500 hours of 2200 ownership and operation with zero problems, and two other identically set up 2200 aircraft in the hangar, also with zero problems.

[Bell Driver]

Thanks for the informed responses. Most of my experience is with turbines--haven't much recent with recips except for Rotax 582 in a Kitfox 2. I like simple, as possible, for this project. Always tempting to add on.... Anyone able to present the pro argument?

[facthunter]

Might be justified in a slow pusher. (which is harder to aircool.). You have to cool the cylinders (evenly) too. IF there's no liquid involved that's one less thing to go wrong. Nev

[vk3awa]

Has anyone experience wilth Rotec aerosport water cooled heads for Jabiru 2200? Installed in Savannah VG ? Seeking consumer reports after seeing the ad in EAA Sport Aviation Magazine.

The water cooled heads were a concept to overcome some head heating issues with earlier generation engines. Jabiru changed the fin design of the cylinder heads quite some time ago which overcome cooling issues. The later generation heads were generically called fine finned heads. Water cooled heads would add weight, water and complexity and are not required. Of course this is only my opinion.

[onetrack]

I have seen reported figures that state over 40% of engine failures are directly related to cooling system failures.

 

Air-cooled engines, unfortunately, quite often operate at higher temperatures than water-cooled engines, and thereby reduce the temperature margin between operating temperature, and oil breakdown temperature.

 

An overheating air-cooled engine quite often incurs major internal damage due to the oil reaching such a high temperature, it then loses its ability to lubricate.

 

Air-cooled engines need particular attention to keeping fins clean, ensuring no oil leaks, or oil spills into fins, and ensuring air-flow is adequate through the fins at all times.

 

A properly cared-for air-cooled engine, that has received attention to ensuring proper air-flow, will gain no real benefit from water-cooled heads, but will gain increased complexity and higher levels of maintenance.

[dewilcox]

Has anyone experience wilth Rotec aerosport water cooled heads for Jabiru 2200? Installed in Savannah VG ? Seeking consumer reports after seeing the ad in EAA Sport Aviation Magazine.

I’m flying a Rotec conversion in Arizona. I have 20+ hours on my 2200 with the liquid cooled heads. I flew today, photo attached. OAT 50f, Water temp 132f, CHT 228f. This is in a Jabiru SP.

 

RPM OAT CHT OT

H2O VLTS EGT OP

[Snoopy]

Pro argument . liquid cooled engines provide a little bit of protection against shock cooling on long descents.

sorry that's all I can come up with.

 

All engines are ultimately air cooled. The liquid is only a means for transporting the heat to the heat exchanger (radiator). The thermostat in the liquid system helps the engine to heat up to operating temperature quickly and helps to retain heat for longer at low power settings. The only time that I think this would be an advantage is if you were conduction emergency landing practice by actually turning the engine off. Which we are not allowed to do. So no advantage in liquid cooling.

 

Jabiru was a relatively new (ish) engine. It has had a few teething problems. Some of which involved cooling issues. However most of these have been addressed and the engine has matured into a good reliable engine. I wouldn't change a thing. I would use it exactly how it came out of the box.

[skippydiesel]

Pro argument . liquid cooled engines provide a little bit of protection against shock cooling on long descents.

sorry that's all I can come up with.

 

All engines are ultimately air cooled. The liquid is only a means for transporting the heat to the heat exchanger (radiator). The thermostat in the liquid system helps the engine to heat up to operating temperature quickly and helps to retain heat for longer at low power settings. The only time that I think this would be an advantage is if you were conduction emergency landing practice by actually turning the engine off. Which we are not allowed to do. So no advantage in liquid cooling.

 

Jabiru was a relatively new (ish) engine. It has had a few teething problems. Some of which involved cooling issues. However most of these have been addressed and the engine has matured into a good reliable engine. I wouldn't change a thing. I would use it exactly how it came out of the box.

 

Hi Snoopy - If there is no advantage in liquid cooling, why are almost all earth bound engines so cooled (except small utility engines such as lawn mowers/chain saws, etc).

 

Liquid cooling actually allows for higher fuel efficiency & potentially longer lasting engines (many reasons but most come down to having better control of engine/material temperature).

 

There have been many liquid cooled aircraft engines BUT the problem is the accompanying weight & complexity. So the question is ; does the additional performance outweigh the potential for more weight/complexity? The answer will be sometimes and sometimes not.

 

The Rotax 912 range is a clear example of a success story for liquid cooling as is the WW2 Merlin range of engines powering fighters & bombers. Might be wrong but I think most of the WW2 German front line aircraft were liquid cooled but the Yanks had (have) a "thing" for great big air cooled donks (I wonder if the Germans had won the war would we be more inclined to liquid cooling our aircraft engines?)

 

I am not knocking air cooled engines - they have served us well and will be around for a long time yet.

 

Your "So no advantage in liquid cooling." is clearly at odds with the worlds internal combustion engine engineers

[onetrack]

I ran a Magirus-Deutz truck with a V8 air-cooled diesel engine for many years in the 1960's and 1970's. It was single drive, and the engine produced 200HP (much more than any comparable water-cooled truck of the time - even petrol trucks).

That truck and its air-cooled V8 provided me with excellent service for around 10 years, hauling bulldozers around on mostly dirt roads, and it was economical, as well as fast (90kmh). It outshone many other trucks on the road at the time.

It had done 500,000kms before I bought it, and I probably did another 500,000 kms with it.

 

The only real competition for Magirus-Deutz, came from the Kenworth trucks with the water-cooled GM (Detroit) 2-stroke diesels. But the GM-powered Kenworth also had the advantage of being faster than the Deutzes (100kmh).

But the GM diesels gained more followers because they were relatively simple to work on, parts were cheap, and they were easier to understand as regards their method of construction, when it came to repairing them.

 

The Deutz trucks died out in Australia, because they were more expensive to buy, more expensive to overhaul (high parts costs), and few mechanics understood their "little foibles".

It wasn't helped by the fact the Deutz manuals were largely written in German, and had minimal English translations beside the German instructions.

 

Their main foibles were independent cylinders and heads secured by either 3 or 4 long bolts, with shims between heads and cylinders, which needed to be measured accurately to ensure even compression between cylinders.

The cylinder head bolts were also known to come loose, and many operators failed to check them, or even knew they were loose. The result was a damaged head caused by combustion blow-by.

 

The heads also needed to be aligned with deadly accuracy when it came to installing intake and exhaust manifolds. Failure to ensure accurate alignment of the mating surfaces ensured intake or exhaust leaks.

And of course, upper engine area oil leaks needed to be addressed, because oil leaks into the cooling fins collected dust, and the engine would start to overheat.

But when looked after by competent mechanics with Deutz engine repair skills, they were an excellent, very reliable truck.

 

I have had conversations many years ago, with old WW2 veterans, who reckoned if the Allies had had air-cooled Deutz engines in ground equipment, in the Middle-Eastern deserts in WW2, they would have had superior engines.

Overheating, with nearly all water-cooled engines, was a perennial problem in WW2 in hot areas - and none more so than the British engines. And when you loose your coolant, by boiling or leakage, you very promptly have a seized engine!

 

Now, to get back to a tenuous aviation link - Reg Ansett started his transport business with a fleet of air-cooled Magirus-Deutz trucks! - but he sold them, and went over to using Kenworth trucks with water-cooled GM diesels!

The major factors that I can gather, for Reg changing over to Kenworths with water-cooled GM diesels, instead buying more air-cooled Deutzes, was superior road speed of the Kenworths, and cheap parts for the GM diesels.

 

Deutz still build air-cooled diesels today - and they also build water-cooled diesels. Interestingly, they also build oil-cooled diesels (using oil as a coolant, rather than water)! These oil-cooled engines are exceptionally reliable.

The engine lubricating oil volume is substantially enlarged, and the enlarged volume of oil is used to both lubricate the engine, and cool it as well.

[Bell Driver]

Thanks to all for the valuable info./comments! Agree that Rotax is an example of liquid- cooling success. Still, prefer slower turning, direct drive engines. Our project will remain air-cooled, and as simple as possible. I may be influenced by long term affection for old Triumph motorcycles (and now the Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor). Would a remote oil tank, i.e. increased oil capacity, be worth considering ? Is monitoring two rear cylinders cht adequate, or do we need monitoring of all 4, and egt as well?

[Yenn]

Back in the sixties when I ran a VW beetle I used to see Holdens and other types of cars, beside the road with the bonnet up and clouds of steam visible. Never had that problem with the VW. One of the reasons I bought it was its superior heating in winter. Lovely and warm in less than a Km down the road.

[facthunter]

and put you to sleep forever with the CO that came with it. It wasn't called Hitler's revenge for nothing. There was a saying in the late 50's "Buy a VW, and roll your own" . Nev

[skippydiesel]

I too had a Triumph 650 - great looking bike. Required a host of special service tools, two drive chains (always one freshly lubricated in waiting, hanging, drip drying surplus grease, back into the round flat "frying pan" tin of special grease that I heated up on the stove), covered my legs with grease, gave me white knuckle diesese (vibration induced cramping in the fingers combined with cold UK winters), in the wet (not uncommon in Britten) had a nasty habit of developing an ignition "miss" seemed to happen when cornering hard. When I was doing 80 mph the vibration was so bad it felt like 120 mph, exhilarating! Its a wonder I am alive today to tell the tale.

 

I much prefer liquid cooling (any liquid including oil will do) Deutz air cooled engines were amazing and lasted long after similar engines had faded into history. If I remember rightly they had a sophisticated forced air cooling system hardly as simple or as light weight as the avarge LyCon/Jab

[onetrack]

Yes, all the air-cooled Deutz engines had fan-forced cooling. Many of the fans were belt-driven, but on the bigger Deutz engines they were gear-driven.

I don't think it was all that complex a cooling system, but they did have a lot of "tinwork" that ensured the air went through the cooling fins.

A lot of Deutz operators were also unaware of the need to keep all the tinwork in place, and the engines would definitely overheat if that tinwork wasn't in place, and in good condition.

[skippydiesel]

Sh---t all my amendments to the above were lost.

[Old Koreelah]

The big WWII air-cooled aero engines tended to cope better with battle damage, but they used considerably more fuel than the liquid-cooled ones.

[facthunter]

I don't know where you get these "facts". Hotter running engines are more thermally efficient. The best specific fuel consumption aero engine is the four row Wright with 3 turbine power recovery turbines by a long way. ( Lbs /HP/Hr ) and about 3300 shaft HP. Nev

[onetrack]

I don't recall my old air-cooled Deutz V8 using excessive amounts of fuel, in fact I thought its fuel consumption was quite acceptable (can't recall what it was now, too long ago).

It certainly beat my petrol-powered International R190 truck that I owned previous to it! The old Inter had a 406 cu in straight 6, and it did 1 mpg loaded, and 2 mpg empty!!

[Yenn]

That Inter was less fuel efficient than the RR meteor in a centurion tank. It could do better than 1 mpg in top gear.

[facthunter]

That's terrible, onetrack.. What payload did you have on that? Nev