My Red Letter Day

The engine started.

Yes, and I think it's starting to set in. It has been one year, two months, and 15 days since I last flew it, and the engine ran. But, who's counting?

The ice and snow is finally gone, so today C-Rod came out to help and try to fire it up. Hardly anything is safetied or tied down, I just wanted to see if the darned thing would run.


We tied it to my car, looked it all over and hit the button. The prop spun but no start. The EC3 controls both spark and fuel, so after a while I suggested that Charley spray in a little starting ether and see what that did.

I tried it again, and the engine lit and spun up! So, that must have meant the ignition part was working but there was something wrong with the fuel injector part.

We looked and looked, tore some wires fuel injector apart, checked pins, connectors, cables, wiring, all sorts of stuff. Still couldn't get the injectors to fire.


Then I said, "Let's see if maybe it's just the remaining magneto that is working and not the electronic ignition. Charley, spray some more ether and I'll try it with the mag off". It briefly roared and spun over fast as the ether fired up and tried to start.

But, I wondered if the magneto was really turned off. Maybe the mag was working and the ignition was not. "Charley, lets remove the plug wires and try it". So we pulled the Slick's wires, but the engine still tried to start on the ether.

"Charley, just for grins, pull the ALL the plug wires". So he did. To our astonishment, the engine STILL tried to fire up when boosted with the ether! Apparently, the high compression (9:1) pistons caused the either to diesel and ignite.

So, our initial supposition that the ignition must be working, was invalid. We decided to go back to the basics and make sure that the EC3 ECU was getting all the input it needed, and whattya know?

We found two wires reversed. It turns out the main power, from the "A" switch was being sent to the "B" side of the ECU, and vice-versa. Because of this the ECU, wasn't getting fed 12 volts.

I think we would have figured this out four hours earlier, if we weren't led astray by that goofy starting ether. After that was corrected it fired right up!



We ran it for about 15 minutes and seemed to be good. There is still a lot to be done, to be learned, and bugs to be ironed out, but it was a Red Letter Day!