Increased engine speed in a plane will generally equal increased air speed? so 5-6-7 grand is going to mean not only increased air speed, but there is also that nice big fan that the 4age will be pushing... that should provide just a little bit of air flow over the radiator... cant see that you could ever need 2 radiators.
Super Chargers are crank diven compressors ... Turbo (Super) Chargers just change the drive method from the crank .. to the exhaust.
A 4AGE is not getting any aircraft airborne. Increased engine speed just means the prop shakes to bits. Aircraft engines need torque, Loads of it. To give you an idea, an IO720 is a 11.8lt flat 8 turbo normalised. It makes a modest 400hp on take off... at 2650RPM. At this speed the Grand Commander's 93in prop tip speeds are 20m/s shy of the speed of sound. Approaching the speed of sound increases prop drag and decreases its efficiency, faster is not better. I won't even bother with the idea of multiple intercoolers or radiators at 120km/h in free, open, cool air but again, look at aircraft engines, Piper Navajo aftermarket cooler kits have a cooler of similar size to the Greddy SW20 coolers and thats on an 8.8liter engine.
As for a 4AGZE in a plane... Having a quick look at the Hornet, you've got a MTOW of 600kg and a factory BEW of 330kg with the rotax 912 (the best engine for the application by far), now it only makes a tinny 75kw but weighs 63kg dry with its reduction box. Lets rip that out and add in a 4AGZE with C52 at roughly 175kgs, so you're now up to a BEW of 442kg, lets add in 2 Camry radiators and about 10ltrs of water. So now you're "STOL" aircraft BEW is up to roughly 465kgs, assuming you're of average build you can either sit someone next to you or put half tank of fuel, but not both. Car engines should be left for cars (and maybe boats).
(Yes I know RV owners put all sorts of engines in their planes but they're RV owners and a lot of the guys I've met who didn't stick with aircraft engines, regret it).
Last edited by worldwalker; 30-04-2013 at 03:04 AM.
There is a Albatros D5a in Australia and 2 in New Zealand and a fair few in North America that have flown over 40 hours on a 120hp Toyota engine. Trying to find the link, and when i purchased the frame it originally had a "redtop" 16v 4age fitted.
It would have to be heavily modified to get anything out of it. The 4AGE weighs around 130kg dry, that's a lot of weight for a 85kw @ 6600RPM (double the Rotax with its gearbox!). As tough as they are, I can't imagine they'd like being run at 5000RPM all day long. My guess would be the "toyota engine" is a lighter alloy engine.
Rotax and continental have really good ultralight products now, I don't see why you'd look elsewhere? I know they're around the 15-20k mark, but its a plane, when it fails, you can't just pull over... Do you really want to risk it? It's been a long time since I had anything to do with RAA so don't quote me, but being an amateur modification/construction it reduces the MTOW to 544kg and also limits you to unpopulated areas.
As for your original idea, bin it. You don't need 2 radiators, the Spitfire had 2 radiators but it was a 1000hp 27lt engine not a 100hp 1.6 4 banger. It has constant airflow at over 120km/h, I think you'll find most thermostats would be half closed at this point. You might need one the size of an oil cooler. Same goes for twin intercoolers, the biggest cooler I've seen on a plane was smaller than a stock Caldina intercooler and it's turbos would glow in the cruise.
Re: 4age-Aero
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