Cooked lower cowl...

[woodryan]

The heat from the front exhaust tube (lower right) is damaging the lower cowl. The fiberglass is beginning to discolor and delaminate. What are my options on protecting the cowl fiberglass from this damage, and are many of you experiencing this issue? Thanks 

[jetdriven]

I have noticed that on ours. the glass is weaker and spiderwebbed there, not burned through. But still, not as good as it should be.  

 

Reglass it with real aircraft epoxy like MGS and use the 7781 fiberglass cloth.  10-12 layers vacuum bagged, about 6-8 if not. Dont use West epoxy, Dont use polyester resin from the boat store.

 

To fix it going forward either put ceramic cloth heat shield on the inside of the cowl there or cover the #1 header with a heat shield. Not the tight wrap, that can crack the pipe.  Like this, it has standoffs made into it.  Its not finalized right now. We rotated it more where the gap was towards the engine and trimmed the clamps.

 

 

[N201MKTurbo]

I've found that adding insulation to your exhaust pipes will eventually ruin them. I did this after Mr Sandman suggested I do it after I complained about his heat shields falling part.

It is a tough deal. My exhaust discolors my cowl. Any attempt to build a heat shield comes apart.

The best I've come up with so far is to take fire sleave from an old hose, slit it lengthwise and glue it to your cowl with high temp RTV.

[bonal]

What about wrapping the pipe with exhaust pipe tape like they use on the custom Harley's

[jetdriven]

The pipe temp gets elevated and it can crack.  The stuff we got has standoffs and it allows the pipe to run at normal temp, it blocks the radiant heat, since there is an air gap there.

[triple8s]

The ovation has a heat shied glued to the inside of the cowl around the exhaust pipe area. The material can be bought from Mooney or from aircraft spruce. It's made of Kevlar and coated with aluminized reflective material. I am pretty sure the glue is high temp rtv but I bought the actual glue they sell for it. Cut the material to size, remove and clean the area, take a plastic bondo knife and apply the glue. After the glue is applied to the cowl and or material put the material in place. I did one side at s time and used moving pads and a bag of play sand to hold pressure on it till cured. The I repeated the procedure for the other

This stuff is NOT easy to cut so take your time. Fyi I tried pasting a link to it but it keeps directing to the wrong product, it is the Kevlar stuff with silver on one side and tan on the other.