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Old 05-26-2010, 09:25 PM   #15 (permalink)
Peter7307
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Victoria , Australia.
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Winfield1990,
You might want to consider the Citroen GS which had an aircooled engine and front wheel drive.
The logic was the air intake was in the high pressure area thus reducing pumping losses for the fan and allowing a minimum of ducting since the body work created a low pressure area just behind the engine , which was very compact and sat ahead of the front wheels.
The engine was a flat four with SOHC and 1100 cc capacity and increased slightly later.

This allowed air to flow from a high pressure area to a low pressure area and the fan simply added some momentum and allowed for low speed cooling.

The car itself was an aerodynamic four door , four seat sedan with a decent sized boot / trunk , four wheel disc brakes and self leveling suspension. All quite innovative for the mid 1970's when it came onto the market.

Keep in mind too many air cooled engines are designed with reliability as a prime requirement so efficiency does tend to take a lower priority.

Finally if you are looking at air cooling have a look at the racing Porsche engines of the 908 / 917 era. The fan size barely increased but the power more than doubled which meant of course the percentage of engine power delivered to cooling was actually decreased. Quite an achievement.

Peter.
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