Cooling Exit Ramps

 What we have here (from "Cool Hand Luke"), is a pair of exit ramps made for a Tiger with known high cylinder head temperatures. Basically, they are exact copies of the original fiberglass cooling exit ramp on a 1975 through 1977 Cheetah/Tiger with two differences. The first difference is that they are symmetric. The second is that they are about an inch and a half taller.

A couple of notes first. The 1978 and later (not including the AG5B Tigers, which have their own problems) have cooling exit ramps made of aluminum. With the square corners and poor entrances to the exit, these are a very poor design. Being made of aluminum, they do not absorb the vibrations and pulses from the propeller and exhaust pipe. As a result, the lower left corner of the cowling cracks like crazy.

This particular Tiger was a 1978 with the aluminum exit ramps.

Before installation of just one of the ramps, the cylinder head temperatures were consistently over 440 degrees F (with an outside air temp of 113°F). The oil temps were well over 220°F.

After installation of one of the ramps, the oil temps dropped by about 20 degrees. The cylinder head temps were still very high. The flight test was cut short due to time. The second ramp was installed about a month later. Unfortunately, the ambient temperatures had also cooled some 20 degrees so there was no direct comparison. Time will tell..... come next summer.

Well, It's next summer. (2003). I installed the other exit ramp on the above mentioned Tiger. From what I can gather from the ton of Data the owner has sent me, temps are down about 20 degrees.

I also installed a set of these ramps on another problematic Tiger and, along with all new baffles, got a 30 degree decrease in CHTs and a 15 degree decrease in oil temperature.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but, I've had real good luck with these on several installations. If you want to replace your metal baffles with fiberglass exit ramps, let me know. I can make up a set according to your requirements.

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These are for testing only. None of these have been permanently installed.