Cooling a 2.7l Type 4 easier/harder/same as a 2.7L flat six? Options

[Tdskip]

Only a slightly theoretical question at this point – is there anything inherently different, or different in practice, between the oil cooling set up needed to keep a 2.7 L flat six cool versus the same displacement 2.7 L big Type 4?

It would seem like the flat six would have smaller displacement per cylinder and that might have less heat and more cooling fin surface area?

Kind of an interesting topic I think / hope.

Happy Friday.

[Superhawk996]

It would seem like the flat six would have smaller displacement per cylinder and that might have less heat and more cooling fin surface area?

Happy Friday.

Yup. Area of a cylinder cooling fin varies as a function of radius squared. Just like two smaller valves can have more flow area than one large valve - so it is that more small cylinders will offer more cooling area than larger cylinders.

911 cylinder heads have significantly more cooling fin area than a T4 head + additional thermal mass of the cam towers to absorb transient thermal spikes.

But, don't forget about the influence of oil cooling. 911 2.7L has piston squirters and much larger oil cooler both on the engine and the 2.7L OEM trombone cooler had lots of oil line to/from the cooler that alllowed for additional oil cooling.