Since the weather sucked today, I decided to work on cabin heat. I spent most of the day fabricating the ‘heat muffs’ which are clamped to the exhaust pipes to gather the heat. These 2 ‘heat muffs’ are made of galvanized steel (I couldn’t find any suitable stainless) and are octagon shaped with an inlet and outlet port where the hoses are connected. This heater system has a hose that connects from the pilot’s side of the cabin at the firewall to one of the ‘heat muffs’, to another hose that connects to the other ‘heat muff’, to a third hose that connects to the passenger’s side of the cabin at the firewall. At the passenger side hose connection point, there is a fan that is used to suck the air from the Pilot’s side, through both ‘heat muffs’ where the air is heated and then back into the cabin, making everyone toasty-warm. The first time I tried this it didn’t provide much heat because the fan I chose has little vents on the side of the fan case, so I believe the fan was sucking air through those vents and not from the hose, so I’ll have to close off these side vents on the fan. Hopefully, this will force the air through the hoses and past the exhaust pipes where it is heated.
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