Setting up Changfa cooling system

[Stevem]

 Hello;
     I apologize for dropping in every year or so and then disappearing but I have way too many irons in the fire and from time to time have to go get surgically adjusted.  About a year ago I asked for, and recieved a bunch of info on Changfa cooling.  I have a lot of projects and am a bit ADD.  Ok, maybe more than a bit.  Anyway, between old cars, old tractors, motorcycles and a pretty large place to take care of, I drift a bit.  Mobil bob and others were kind enough to pitch in with cooling info on my Changfa brand 195.  My Listeroid 6/1 is still holding down the fort for our backup power and doing a fine job. 
     My Changfa is mounted on a heavy I-beam base and direct coupled to a 10 kw st generator.  I have mounted a gm alternator via serpentine 36in. belt running around the lovejoy type coupling.  Blockoff plate was in place but I re-installed the hopper the other day and engine fired on a couple of revs of starter.  After reading what Mobil Bob had to say, I finally got around to picking up a radiator from a Subaru with dual fans.  I figure to only wire one into the mix and will have to find a temp sensor to activate.  Suggestions welcome.  Is it possible to cool with only the fans and radiator or wiser to install electric water pump?  If water pump, should it be set up on sensor to not pump till up to temp? I have one of George B's block off plates with t-stat.  My concern is over complicating setup.  I intend to forge on with this over the next few weeks and get up and going.  I will try to get pictures and post.  I'm not going to wow anyone with them but at least show that I am real.  My generator shed is concrete floor about 60 feet from house with exhaust going out back side into forest.  No neighbors to worry about as far as noise.  I'm finding that my engine noise is mostly mechanical and a bit of intake.  The least of it is through the stock can muffler, though I will install a much larger one. 
     On the positive side of things, I am seeing the gas pump prices running a bit and I bet interest is about to return to water cooled diesel generators.  Also, do you all think it is best to attach my radiator to the skid I built for my changfa, or remote mount it on the wall of shed?  Oh wait, I seem to be jumping around a bit!  Thanks, and I will look forward to any and all responses.

[Stevem]

      :)Sorry to keep chiming in about cooling of Changfa.  I'll figure it out.  I don't know how to delete my posts on the web site or I would.  Wouldn't ask all of my dumb questions but I try to avoid painful mistakes.  I'm inches from being up and going and will check in to see what you folks are up to.  Best to you all.

[glort]

I set up a thermosyphon system with a Subaru Radiator I turned on it's side so the cooling channels ran vertically instead of horizontally.  It worked very well.

The thing is to  make sure your outlet from the engine goes tot eh top of the Rad and the outlet is nearer the return inlte tot eh engine and level as you can make it.  A little angle would hurt if you have plenty of rise in the first place.  I Tapped into the connection at the top of the rad and ran a 3/4" Hose up to a water tank of about 20L so the system was non pressuried but always full and had plenty of opportunity for air to escape.

This was al;so very successful. I was surprised to fin how much heat went up into that tank not that it was of any concern. Just surprised because it had to go one way up that little 3/4 hose.
I regulated the fan speed with a tail light in series because even one fan overcooled the 6 hp engine a lot.  Given you have a thermostat, I think you could run the fan fairly quick to allow for hot days without worry.
that said, there are loads of little thermostat board on ebay with relays built on that are cheap as chips. You can set the on and off temps  and they will control the fan for you.  I'd just sit the sensor on the Radiator hose, put a good dob of heat sink paste and bandage it up with tape.  It will probably sense low but you can ajust the thermo to compensate and you have a lot of reserve in the system anyway.
The thermostat will stop the engine over cooling so the thermo will just save a bit of power and wear on teh fan if it's any concern which I would say not but I do like to have some complication for the sake of efficency and making a job well done. You could also have a 2nd sensor on the return to the engine so if for some reason the top fan didn't come on, you have the backup of the 2nd.
You could go one better again and wire up a DPDT relay to latch if activated. This would mean if the return sensor tripped due to what could be a first fan failure, it would turn on and stay on untill the system was switched off where it would automatically reset.

Yeah, it is probably not needed but I enjoy being able to do thing like this especially when you can play with components that look impressive and cost next to nothing.

My engines of this design make far more Intake than exhaust noise as does the lister even with a length of straight pipe on it and no air filter.
I found using a bit of radiator hose over the inlet on my little horizontal and ducting that to a car airbox made a huge difference in silencing over the standard air cleaner setup. I also found putting rag loosely in the space between the paper filter and the chrome metal cover of the OEM filter knocked the noise down a lot but probably isn't great for airflow at high loading.  Using a car airbox is a lot quieter as they are designed to do that as well and the fact the airflow is so much slower through the over size/ capacity air box makes it quieter as well. 
Car air boxes can be had cheap as chips from wreckers and you will probably only have to change the filter once in 10 years.

As for mounting, really depends on how secure your engine is. If it really vibrates you  might want to either remote or rubber mount the Radiator.  You could hang the thing from rubber strips off a frame from the base of the engine as well so all the connections are rubber isolated. If it's easy to mount to the wall, you can do that too but of course leave plenty of clearance for the airflow. Needs more space to escape that to go in because warmed air expands which is how engines work.

If the price of fuel goes up, what you will see is a bunch of people calling for the invasion of other countries to just take the oil to keep " gas" prices down and a resurgence in the interest of veg oil as diesel fuel.

We will also have our intelligence insulted again with  crap about the world running out of oil and only a few years supply left and other complete and utter bullshit we have heard and been played for idiots before with.
Of course some of us have been doing veg oil for 15 years so never worried about gas prices much anyway!   

[Stevem]

Hi glort;
     Thanks for your response.  I'll be up and running and pull my Listeroid in the next week or so to install the   Changfa.   I'm not an innovator.  I learn from others and forge ahead.  My Changfa 195 runs like a top and I can't wait to produce power with it.  I'm getting old enough that I probably won't see a shtf situation.  I may not even move to an off grid location.  I just like to produce power when the grid is down, which it is here often.  My biggest problem is reading from archives.  I can't seem to do that  If I could, I wouldn't have to ask stupid questions on line.   What I do learn, I will freely share with anyone who asks.  Will still try to post pictures when I get up and going.  Cheers

[dmarkh]

For  my Changfa 1115 direct coupled to an ST15, I used one of these fan controllers:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CNAMMQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and adjusted it so the fans come on at 215F. They go off at 205. The fans I used were:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003R2ZYF4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My rad was from a toyota. It seems to actually be a little over kill. I only needed one of the fans running for the 80 hours I was without power from Erma and had to block off half of the rad at that. The fan controller worked very well.

I also use one of these for my water pump as my return to the Changa is into the drain port on the bottom.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049PLFGK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was very comfy those 80 hours.  I'm ready for the 2018 season.

Oh, and the water pump is wired directly to the battery with a switch but I've found there is no reason for it NOT to run. The Tstat has a couple of little holes in it with cotter pins hanging to let "some" water pass before it opens. The engine warms up pretty quick.

Good luck.
Mark

[Stevem]

dmarkh;
     Thank you for the info.  I just ordered the same Bosch pump from Amazon the other day but had no idea about the fan control.  That is a big help since I had no idea that there were adjustable controls available.  Your temp settings seem to correspond with what Mobil Bob states.  I will set up at 215-205 as you guys say.  Very soon now I will be generating power with it instead of running it in front of my shop just to listen and watch it turn.  Thanks again.

[Stevem]

     Just recieved notice from amazon that my bosch water pump could not be shipped.  It was 58 dollars.  I bet I will now have to pay more. 

[dmarkh]

dmarkh;
     Thank you for the info.  I just ordered the same Bosch pump from Amazon the other day but had no idea about the fan control.  That is a big help since I had no idea that there were adjustable controls available.  Your temp settings seem to correspond with what Mobil Bob states.  I will set up at 215-205 as you guys say.  Very soon now I will be generating power with it instead of running it in front of my shop just to listen and watch it turn.  Thanks again.

Note that with this fan controller only the upper (turn-on) temp range is adjustable. It has by default a 10 degree swing so at 205 it will turn off. But when I ran both fans and did not block off half of my radiator, even after the fans turned off the temp drop kept going down well below 205 which sometimes caused my TS to close. My goal was, as yours, to match what Mobil Bob recommended. 205-215 degrees. Using a single fan and blocking off half the radiator got me there. I ended up running about 80 hrs or so straight and used around 25 gallons of fuel that cost me less than a buck a gallon back in 2014. Which reminds me, I need to refill those fuel cans. I keep 50 gallons in the shed out back just for these damn things. I've got a 15 gallon tank on the gen which gives me almost 2 full days of run time. 

As far as that water pump goes, I'm sure there are plenty to choose from that are available. That little sucker gets pretty damn hot. I'm sure it is designed to handle that heat but I couldn't help but think that in an auto, there must be some air blowing over it. So I ended up installing a small fan I had laying around to help it out. That fan was a 12V/.9 amp Vantec Tornado TD8038H. Oh and my batteries charging system is just an "older style" 6/12 amp battery charger.

Mark

[Stevem]

Dmarkh;
     Thank you for all of your information.  I got a new pump ordered and it is on the way.  I'm hoping I don't have to block off my radiator to keep temps up but I guess it is better than overheating.  btw-- I live in an area where we lose power a lot and still my lister has only 450 or so hours after 8 years.  I see that my radiator cap is 16 lbs. so I will have to find a 7 lb. cap that will work.  I will run it for a bit and at the same time try and use my banjo fittings from Geo. B. to set up low oi shutoff. 

[dmarkh]

Be sure to read up here about the crazy oil pressures on these changfas.

[mobile_bob]

i have not used one like this, but it looks promising and likely would do a very good job on the 195 changfa

and it comes with the wire plug to boot, how cool is that?

bob g

fwiw, and i am pretty sure i wrote up the specs of what i used with my 195 based trigen

1. radiator was from a 1988 nissan sentra
2. the electric fan was from the same car
3. the fan control switch was also from the same car.
4. i used a honda car tstat housing, to bolt down to the blockoff plate on the s195
5. i used a 195F tstat
6. i used a pik a part vw auxiliary heater pump, paid i think 7 dollars for it, it was rusty and nasty from
poor cooling maintenance, and it leaked a bit until it was used for a while and then it seemed to seal up
and work fine.  heck it was cheap and available for testing.
7.  i used a 7lb radiator cap and 50/50 antifreeze mix.

the pump takes water off the bottom of the radiator, it had a second port that was 5/8" which was handy
i then fed the pump outlet back into the drain cock port at the bottom of the cylinder block.

the tstat was modified with a single 1/16" hole and a tiny cotter pin to keep the hole open, this allows just a bit of water to move around the tstat and allow for proper function, letting any air trapped to move out.

under load the system comes up to temp, the tstat opens as expected and the coolant then is allowed to circulate through
the radiator, once the cylinder temps get up to 214f, the fan kicks on and remains on until the cylinder temp drops to 205F where the fan kicks off, wash rinse repeat...

this allows the tstat to remain open and the flow to remain constant through the system.

the engine is cooling system limited as it relates to max power output, the s195 is rated at 12hp 2200rpm at sea level using the hopper cooling,  using the radiator system as described the same engine has been tested to produce 15hp at 1800rpm (sea level) and do so with stability.

the design of my system is based on the theory of max output for limited time spans, this allows for a design max output of 10kwe which then equates to much improved bsfc efficiency.

i have no reason to believe that there would be any need for modification of the design for part load operations,

while there is much to be said for the simplicity of hopper cooling, the gains in efficiency and max power output are significant and favor going to the trouble of the closed system, radiator/pump design.  in my opinion

[Stevem]

Hi Mobil Bob;
     My Subaru radiator has approx 13/8 hoses and the Bosch electric pump is slightly less than 1 in. o.d.  should I bush down to pump and back up on return and expect the pump to do a good job?  I saw where you mentioned taking the return to engine and dumping it into the hole for drain petcock by flywheel.  Was that your entire return?  Since I have an utterpower blockoff plate should I simply pipe out of that and back into it with a dip tube on the return?  I think I will set up a little later on for a fuel shufoff attached to a temp sensor.  I'm hoping a simple loop from the blockoff plate out to radiator and back to other fitting of blockoff plate will cool properly with the fan operational and a t-stat in place.  Thank You!

[dmarkh]

Hi Stevem,

I also had the Utterpower block off plate. I blocked off the return after adding the pump. It didn't make since to use it for the return. You will get better cooling having the return go into the drain port, I'm sure. I also had to downsize/adapt the radiator hose to the pump and drain port. I also put a new drain port before the pump. That is where I did the downsize/adapt of the hose. My little pump pumps pretty well. Better than thermal siphon. Here are some pics.

Block off plate return.

[dmarkh]

Pump, fan,  and new drain port

[dmarkh]

Old drain port converted for pump output