Liquid Cooled Air Power
Introduces Cool Jugs^® Liquid Cooled Conversion kit
for O-360 and O-540 series Lycoming aircraft engines
at the AOPA Convention in Long Beach, CA

After over 7 years of research, development and testing in secrecy, Liquid Cooled Air Power will be unveiling their Cool Jugs^® Liquid Cooled conversion kit for O-360 and O-540 series Lycoming engines at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association convention in Long Beach, CA.

Current General Aviation piston engines are essentially the last of the air-cooled piston engines – virtually all other engines have converted to liquid cooling. The vast majority of motorcycle engines and even die hard air-cooled automotive engine manufacturers like Porsche have gone to liquid cooling in the quest for more power and reliability per cubic inch of displacement. In fact liquid cooled automotive engines have in many instances more than doubled their power output per cubic inch of displacement in the last 7 years. One of the principal reasons such advances have been possible is because the operating temperature of the engine is kept at a stable and efficient level allowing more exotic fuel and engine management systems to be developed.

At Liquid Cooled Air Power we believe that the next step in the technological advancement of General Aviation piston engines is to convert to liquid cooling. For the last 7 years we have been quietly working on a practical liquid cooled piston aircraft engine. We looked at the options available: design and build a new engine from the ground up or leverage already existing technology?

We realized, that fundamentally the basic existing horizontally opposed direct drive aircraft engines are well suited to their job, trusted by the aviation community and have extensive maintenance support. So, we found that leveraging an existing engine platform would make the most sense – converting a well-known and reliable air-cooled aircraft engine to use liquid cooling.

We are adapting the experience and technology that has been proven in high performance racing to meet aviation's unique requirements of both high performance and long-term reliability. We have also addressed the unique nature of the aviation market that is defined by small production runs of high performance parts and the ability to produce those parts in a cost effective manner and not just meet but also exceed the expectations of quality, safety and reliability.

The benefits of liquid cooling are substantial:

                ·                Lower and stable engine temperatures
                ·                Lower cooling drag
                ·                Elimination of shock cooling
                ·                Improved performance
                ·                Better fuel efficiency
                ·                Higher reliability
                ·                Longer engine and component life
                ·                Safer cabin heat

We looked at the existing aviation engines and based our conversion on the most popular engines that are used in the greatest number of airframes flying today. We analyzed the engine’s fundamental attributes and then designed a liquid cooled conversion with an emphasis on minimal change to the base engine’s design.  In fact so much so that not a single internal component of the base engine was replaced or modified.

The liquid cooled conversion would not be complete without proper instrumentation. The most basic aspect of this new instrument would be engine coolant temperature however; we also realized that additional information on the health of the coolant system was necessary so we designed a new coolant-monitoring gauge from the ground up. This new gauge not only shows the coolant temperature but also displays the water pump output pressure and can warn when there is a low coolant condition. This gauge provides at a glance a complete picture of the condition and health of the coolant system.

We now had to prove that our design could do the job under the most demanding circumstances. So we built a 4 cylinder O-360 test engine using the highest compression stock pistons available, (nine to one) 9:1, and lashed it up to an engine dynamometer with extensive instrumentation. We then subjected the test engine to over 50 hours of grueling tests.

Not only did the liquid cooled conversion perform flawlessly but also we were able to demonstrate engine operation over an incredibly wide range of power settings and loads. The vast majority of our tests were conducted with the engine operating at wide-open throttle and peak lean or 50 degrees lean of peak (Exhaust Gas Temperature) EGT mixtures.

Running on 100 Low Lead aviation fuel, with induction air temperatures as high as 120 degrees we were unable to induce detonation at any RPM or mixture setting. In fact with the throttle wide open and peak lean EGT mixture we loaded the engine from 2700 RPM all the way down to 1600 RPM for over half an hour at a time and the engine ran flawlessly. Yes, you heard correctly, that’s 1600 RPM at wide open throttle, 28 inches manifold pressure, 120 degrees Fahrenheit induction temperature and peak lean EGT mixture – talk about running over square!

Overall our testing proved that we had not only kept the engine operating temperatures at 200 degrees but we also developed 195 horsepower, or 15 extra horsepower over the stock engine. We also found that when operating at peak lean EGT mixture at sea-level pressure, the engine produced an extra 7 horsepower compared to a full rich mixture. Fuel consumption at full rich was 18 gallons per hour compared to 12 gallons per hour at peak lean EGT. So we proved that you can safely make more power and save fuel when running liquid cooled.

History has shown that advances in aircraft engines have tended to drive the development of airframes.  Today we are seeing considerable improvement in higher technology airframes and avionics yet, even these new airframes are held back by yesterday’s engines. Yes, there are other types of multi-fuel engines being developed and hopefully one day they will actually power general aviation aircraft. But these new multi-fuel engines are designed for new airframes – without any consideration of adaptation to the vast fleet of existing aircraft. It will take years before these multi-fuel engines have the necessary support in the field; in terms of things as basic as fuel availability and more importantly, experienced and properly equipped maintenance facilities.

At Liquid Cooled Air Power we believe that in order to be successful we must offer new engine technology to both existing and future aircraft at a reasonable cost while at the same time taking into account the ability to service and maintain this new technology in the field. Our engines run on the same fuel as their air-cooled counterparts but have the ability to also run reliably on lower octane unleaded automotive fuels. More importantly we are introducing our liquid cooled technology in such a way that service facilities will have no problem handling maintenance due to parts commonality.

Aircraft owners and pilots are traditionally very conservative when it comes to the most important part of their aircraft – the engine. We understand that and we have taken great care to develop and introduce our first product in a manner that should instill confidence in the aviation community. We have spent the last few years developing our first liquid cooled aircraft engine solution and we are confident that it will meet the approval of the aviation community.

We are committed to producing real and usable advancements – not just press releases and promises. Today we are offering advances in engine technology that can be used in both existing as well as yet to be designed aircraft.

Today we are introducing two new liquid cooled engines that you may already rely on: The Cool Jugs liquid cooled (say ‘Oh 360’ and ‘Oh 540’) O-360 and O-540 series Lycoming engines with parallel valve cylinders.

: The Cool Jugs liquid cooled conversion kits are available today – a simple bolt on kit that will convert virtually any parallel valve O-360 or O-540 Lycoming engine to liquid cooling in no more time than it would take to change a set of cylinders.

The Cool Jugs kit comes complete with a set of new cylinders, (including valves, seats and springs), our high performance gear driven coolant pump, high flow thermostat housing, coolant manifold and coolant system gauge. Everything needed to convert your O-360 or O-540 engine to liquid cooling.

Liquid Cooled Air Power is dedicated to advancing the development of the General Aviation piston engine. The time is right to start advancing beyond the air-cooled piston engines of yesterday. Contact us to find out how you can start flying on Liquid Cooled Air Power.