Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Cooling an aircooled engine



 The 200 mile race at Daytona demanded a lot from engines, running wide open produced a lot of heat that the engine fins alone and large oil tanks couldn't disperse quick enough. In 1966 and '67 Triumph fitted oil coolers from the Chevrolet Corvair. In 1968, they tried something else, a Volkswagen oil cooler up behind the carburetors, and two finned 2 quart oil tanks ahead of the engine. The oil tanks were out in the airflow, the crankcase ran hot.

All pictures from
Lindsay Brooke, Triumph Racing Motorcycles in America, Motorbooks 1996



2 comments:

rats said...

Wish I had a copy of that book. Thanks for posting, the VW cooler is news to me.

Mister G said...

I figured, hey, it's available, but no... it's achieved that out-of-print, I-can-charge-too-much level, hasn't it? it's a good addition to the racing/flat track history book shelf along with Girdler's XR750 book.