Aircooled VW South Africa

Hi all the good aircooled ghuru's,..have watched a few Utube videos of this guy.
Amongs others the fan and flaps and.... design h's been working on

Flaps looks to be a good add to aircooled engine,....ensuring directional flow.
It seems he's onto a "new" fan design currently

Any views on these topics ?

Regards Nick

The problem I have with this guy is that he is testing the open fan output, and not the air across the cylinders where its needed.

The 2nd point is that fans have sweet spots, so each fan has a an effective cooling speed,

and by changing the fan performance you also change the perfect output speed. Beetle fan sweet spot is at 80Kph in top (approx)

So till these measurements are taken at the correct points, at the different speeds, I would stay clear of this experimental build.

The other point one has to keep in mind is that plastic expels the plasticizer that its made with, so with high air flow over the plastic,

the flexibility of the fan will deteriorate and the fan will become brittle.

also the rump up and ramp down speed load on the mounting points will be too much over a long period and fail within a short time.

Sorry but thats my opinion.

Herman

Volume to pressure ratio of a fan needs to be matched to application.
Original vw cooling fan was designed to build relatively high pressure to squeeze air through the small gaps between cooling fins.

When someone tested Andrig's previous fan, the one in your picture, on a kombi-
CHT consistently went up by about 20deg C compared to the oem vw fan.
So he is now changing his design to a copy of VW's fan. But also made out of plastic.

Jip,... no need to apologise for your opinion Herman,....it is exactly for that reason I sparked this "debate"
I'm not convinced yet with the "best thing since sliced cheese" fan "testing" .....
Your opinions about the flaps directing the air over the heads etc ? ..........seem to make sense to me
What say you ?
Haans

I had a discussion with him on FB a while back. My opinion is he is a guy with ideas and a 3D printer, but little knowledge of fans or air flow.
I've forgotten what he said or the discussion, but I dont think his fans work as he says they do. His foundational knowledge is severly lacking. We went further into fan design in 1st semester Mechanical Engineer.

Haans wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 12:50 pm ...........Your opinions about the flaps directing the air over the heads etc ? ...............
Haans

The Total problem I have with this guy is that he wants to make out that the German engineers over the last 50 years in designing the aircooled are a bunch of idiots....

As a guy that has done Fluid dynamics for a career, (air is a fluid) see no new innovation at all but a guy that is copying a working piece in a easy build format without the engineering knowledge of the possible failure points.

AS SAID THAT THERE ARE POINTS OF CONSIDERATION IN AIRFLOW, WHICH ARE SPEED, PRESSURE, EASE OF FLOW AND DIRECTION

The old cooling fan housing has all the baffles built in and adding strait line baffles will not add but may subtract from the cooling effect.

All good engineers have the right saying...." If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

But as @TonyZ has insinuated, its a guy trying to pay off his 3D printer

Herman

That's what I want to hear,......!
Aircooled specialist giving their opinions,.... in order that bean counters and sundry like me can consider the whole spectrum !,
Make sense ......me thinks,...trust your opinions and knowledge of this "aircooled" wonder !!!
Thank you Haans