Capturing Heat from Top of Engine to Heat Single Carb Plenum, Bottom of Carb, Fuel line, Air Intake

Since i am waiting for some parts on another project, I decided to play around with trying to trap heat coming off of the top of the engine.

The foam I used was closed cell Polyurethane Plastic Foam Insulation, like Pipe Insulation, Not the soft spongy Foam Crap, this is more ridged, and durable, than that.

I wanted to try and trap as much heat in a enclosure as I can.

It is removable, there are two sides and a Top that could either wrap around the carb, and keep the heat in, or go over the top of the carb to and use the heat for heated induction too..

This will not keep the engine super hot, but just provide some extra heat.

I will have to keep an eye on the temp gauge, to make sure.

Hey what are the two yellow sticks hanging on the wall in the back ground, anyone? anyone? in the 1st picture, it may be hard to see but one yellow stick is behind the other.

Also 1st picture shows some of the insulation laying on the floor, you can see how thick it is 5/8" thick Closed cell polyurethane foam.


Side rear view


Another side rear view


Sealing the air gaps in back of engine.

I have captured all of the coolant lines on top of the engine inside the heat enclosure, this should Trap some good heat inside this enclosure right where it is needed.

I will do some testing with it, once I get my 83' GL11 back to running good, right now she is Not running well, and seems to be Very Rich, seems like timing is off, it misses, yet I have good spark at all cylinders, but i dont want this thread to get off track.

Dan suggested, ignition, timing or valves not closing, and i will be looking at those soon, when my parts come to me in a few days.

I am chomping at the bit, waiting to get this fixed, and running well again.

I Like Building RC planes, and have quite a few of them, I Love the FAST Flaying wings, they are made of EPP Foam a very tough foam like in your new cars 5 mph bumper, Tough stuff

I have planes that fly over 120+ mph and I have crashed them straight in to the ground at full speed, they are usually always un-damaged and I just dust them off make sure all functions are working and fly again.

Why the long in depth story.

The glue I use on those 120+mph planes is Very Strong, yet has some give to it.

The Glue i use on them is called Shoe Goop, But any of the Goop line of Glues will work, as they are a adhesive/sealant type of RTV that is fairly tough.

I may need to put a little spot here and there on my heat enclosure, to keep it in place, while riding, it will holed the foam Insulation in place securely, But a razor blade will remove it.

could not tell what yellow sticks were ...but like the enclosure cant wait for report on use ... lots hve thought this way .. me also

Joe those Yellow sticks on the wall may just be permanent wall art.

I still need them for my 86' GL12, but the 83' GL11 does not need them ANY MORE.

As I may not have a use for them to much longer in the future.

They are Lead filled Vacuum Sync Manometers, had one, then went to a yard sale, saw the other one new, never used still closed up in the package for $5.00.

My thought on the top tank,

Was to put another piece of the Poly foam in the front of the upper gas tank tunnel for a real good seal and down to the radiator Fan guard plate.

This would block the air Blast as it would seal from air block plate that is between the radiator and the carb that blocks the blast of air to the carb. and keep air out of the under gas tank tunnel.

It would be nice to have a moveable flapper that with a choke cable I could open or close it, based on how hot a day it is, hot day would be good if it were open for cooler air.

Another thought was to add some side panels to make the Insulation side panels on the Enclosure look better.

Add some either 1/16" -1/8" thick either Alum., Polished Stainless, or Painted 1/32"-1/16" Steel, Color match Painted to the Gas tank.

That could be easily Glued to the insulation, and would be fixed.

I could do a really nice Finished Burled Wood laminate, using contact cement to glue to a plate.

I love to finish Really nice grained wood.

If/when i put the Batwing on this bike a matching wood grained dash might be kind of nice.

Just in case you wanted to see the right side.


Ok since you axed, one more of the left side, for comparison, i did some finer trimming on the left side, and made it fit better.


Maybe, just maybe, a look at the top Cover of the Heat enclosure.

The top cover is right up against the bottom of the air filter, this should heat the carb. some, as well as everything else inside the enclosure.


I have Not made a cover yet for the front of Under the upper tank tunnel yet, I may put a removable one in place to see how it works.

I will be doing some testing, maybe later than sooner.

really,nice.. :builder:

yep i got some full coverage vetter lowers ill put on sometime soon to hold heat around motor for winter time

I wish my rc plane days had the same good luck of surviving 120mph crashes, but that was in the last days of balsa construction. Crashes were expensive and time consuming to repair if repairable at all but that didn't stop me from always wanting to push things a little too far.

On the subject of trapping heat on the bike, I would also consider pulling heated air into the intake from the headers vw beetle style. Since you're not getting as much heat externally as you would with coolant heated manifold I think you need to eliminate cold intake air also to make this more effective. It wouldn't have to be complex or expensive, a couple copper lines strapped to exhaust manifold with header wrap, feeding hot air into radiator hoses into sealed air cleaner made from PVC with a pod filter in it. That was my plan, but I've been too busy rebuilding the rest of the bike to get that far.