Brief Description: Initial Engine Baffle Fitting - Part 1
Unlike most automobile engines, traditional aircraft engines do not have liquid cooling or a radiator and depend solely on air for cooling. This means that the baffling under the cowling needs to be extremely efficient in directing the airflow down over the engines cylinders to assure that they are keep sufficiently cool under all flight and non-flight conditions such as taxing and engine run-up prior to take off. This cooling direction is accomplished by a maze of sheet metal baffles that are precisely cut and fitted around the cylinders and crankcase to force the airflow down over the cylinders and out the bottom of the cowling.
Fortunately, Van's supplies a very nice baffling kit these days that makes the job much easier. However, they only supply a kit for the Lycoming IO-360 and NOT for the Lycoming IO-390 that I have on the RV-8. The 360 and 390 are very similar in size and shape, but there is a big difference in that the 390 has a *front* mounted prop governor. On the 360, the prop governor is mounted on the rear of the engine and this is where Van's baffling kit assumes it is. Custom fitting the front baffles to accommodate the front-mounted governor was quite a bit of extra work and will be covered in a subsequent log entry.
The pictures show the complete Van's baffling kit and the installation of the sides and rear baffles. These went on pretty quickly since these areas are very similar between the 360 and the 390.
