Does anyone know if cylinder head baffles come with this kit?

I tripped over a youtube by Asahi21c where he fabricates his own baffles so was thinking "damn! - no baffles" - but in a different video he seems to be holding up a set of baffles on a sprue/tree (so I was thinking maybe they are included but didn't meet his approval).

Ah! - thank you Tomick!! - those "heat shields" are the items I was curious about and indeed the kit evidently comes with them - YAY!! (was looking to be a beggar to fabricate them).

They're actually not heat shields as such - they're "Cooling Baffles" and their purpose is to direct airflow properly thru the cylinder fins - I haven't seen a real zero (or any Radial engined warbird actually I'm sad to say) up close, but I would suspect that inside the cowl are baffles which end up sitting across the whole line of rocker covers/head baffles and form a blockage between there and outward to the inside of the cowl - such that all airflow is forced to a path amongst / around the cylinders - to achieve proper cooling.

Those have been important to me because from my point of view an engine without them would be pretty incomplete/naked.

The cowl flaps are used obviously enough to control the amount of flow = control engine temperature.

The opposed 4 and 6 cylinder aero engines I work on have baffling setups for the same reason - by comparison to radial engines tho, opposed engines often end up with much more intricate baffling - because they're drawing air from end on rather than healthily face on so to speak. Big frontal area of the radial with cylinder sittin right up there facing the airflow simplifies the whole thing a heap!

In photos you'll notice a curved tube in the centre of each of them? - I strongly suspect (like 99.99% sure) those tubes are designed to specifically direct a cooling flow onto the rear spark plugs on each cylinder. Similar tubes are present in various current opposed aero engines too - usually directed at magnetos and fuel pumps on the rear accessory case. We call them "Blast Tubes". I'll be looking to add those to my build.

Hi Tailfirst
interesting stuff on your engines, you mention not having seen any historic warbird stuff so here's some links to Australian museums that may be of interest. Just scroll down past the USA links for Australia.

http://www.warbirdalley.com/museum.htm


Andy

Thanks Andy - good stuff!

No worries Kev :-)

A lot of the systems design and construction is "sort of" familiar to me, but there's enough difference to what I'm actually knowledgeable / experienced in that as far as stuff like this Zero goes I would describe what I have as at best more like "insight" rather than outright knowledge. I suppose very much like a modern motor mechanic dealing with pre-1930's vehicles? (or perhaps a Lawnmower mechanic trying to understand race cars is closer ). During my training a fair bit of the theoretical / textbook stuff included wartime era systems - ie. like the mechanical and electric prop control systems and fuel control and turbo and supercharging systems - as well as basics like oil systems and cooling etc. - but a lot of it I've never used - ie. I've never worked on an old style Hamilton Standard type prop (the Zero looks to have something along those lines) or of course a General Electric prop. - and much of that book learning has faded by now.

As a matter of interest, here's a Ham Std being put together (and pulled apart - then put back together - don't know what happened there but looks like some consultation with a knowledgeable person by phone takes place). This is a 2 blade but you can see the similarity to the Zero prop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GARa0uhyZ10