How to Decrease Drag

This Year's Field of Dreams

I was happy to be able to attend this years Tandem Wing Field of Dreams, in Beatrice, Nebraska this year. The plane's systems seem to have pretty much stabilized and I just went through the annual condition inspection with no major issues. The weather looked fairly good, with the exception of a 25 kt headwind at 4,000 ft.

The flight was pleasant and uneventful. I invented my own personal SPOT tracker on the way. I just hit the "nearest airport button" on my GPS then texted it to my wife. She could then Google the identifier and see where I was - kind of.

I got to Beatrice about 1:30 local time and I was the first plane there and was greeted by Alan Thayer sporting his traditional green shorts and video camera. I wonder what he does with all that tape.

I had decided it was about time I gave a few rides and there are a few guys who are approaching time to make their first flights. I always worry about this, so I feel it is my obligation to demonstrate my birdie and give them a feel (respect) for what they are getting into.

Rides went to Joseph Snow (2nd ride), and Jerry Brinkerhuff, Sanjay Dhall, Dan Yeager (webmaster for Quickheads.com and the new QBA newsletter editor) and Alan Thayer.

I messed up the last application of my race numbers so this time I enlisted the help of a professional.

It was definitely a low-key event and I'm sure the fewer number of planes and people is the reason. We had a nice dinner at the local American Legion and that was fun. Then came the inevitable group shot.

Doug didn't have a High Time award this year, but I somehow managed to pick up the furthest distance traveled award.

There was talk of moving the venue for next year and I agree. A different place could freshen things up a bit.

Here is Doug Humble carting the Brothers Johnson and Honey Lamb.

The ride home was fun, I was fairly low much of the way due to ceilings, but the visibility was better than 10 miles, so no problem.

Glad I went.

AirVenture Cup Race 2010 - Very long post

I finally got the plane ready enough for the Big Race, or so I hoped. There are so many parts of it all, it's hard to relate. Even though the plane might not be 100% race ready, I thought it should be close enough. I guess I had three main goals; participate in the race, finish it safely, and get my Q-200 to Oshkosh for the 20th time. It had missed the last two years and I sorely missed its presence there.

Amongst all the other troubleshooting and preparations, I finally decided to go with my old Catto prop. It's a 60x70 and has served well. C-Rod helped me dynamically balance it, so at least that part was good to go. Don Bartlett had welded up the cracks in the oil sump and added a bit of a brace. Just to be sure, I wrapped a nylon strap around the sump, to make sure it couldn't depart the engine. My plan was to fly each leg, then pull the cowl to inspect for cracks; and, just for good measure, I brought along my old composite sump. I'm pretty sure I was the only racer carrying a spare oil sump. I wish I had been able to figure out how to fit an oil cooler in my particular installation.

Got to Mitchell, SD and made an arrival pass down the runway, which was pretty fun. The townspeople were very interested in the race and we had over 2,000 spectators come out. Kids carried the event programs around and had the pilots sign autographs. Fun stuff.

I had gotten a hangar reservation ($25.) for Friday night and had the Quickie safely tucked away to guard against the forecasted storms. Man, did it hit hard. 70 mph winds! Hail was forecast, but fortunately it avoided us. Only about 5 planes were stranded outside and by all reports they did just fine.

Had a dinner and race briefing on Saturday night, then I settled into the hotel.

Race day is always different. The racers are all focused and a bit more subdued as we gather our thoughts and mentally prepare. Several handshakes are exchanged with the wish "good luck, be safe." Here is a morning-of photo.

They always launch the fastest planes first, and I was in the third group to go. The procedure is to take off and hold it down till you hit the departure end of the runway, that way we can build up speed a bit before they start the clock. I followed Bob Vasey in his RV-3 and I was off. My big concern has been the oil temperature. I figured if the ambient air temp stayed below 60 degrees or so that I would be able to fly WOT. Above 60 and I would probably have to throttle back.

The engine was smooth and I climbed to 7,500' msl. High pressure dominated the area and it seemed that there wasn't any help with tail winds, so 7,500' seemed as good a place as any. I climbed rather quickly, for a race profile, at 500' per minute.

Once leveled off, the engine wound up to 3,100 RPM and I accelerated to around 208 mph indicated true air speed. So far, so good.

The outside air was about 62F and after a half hour or so, the oil temp steadily crept up to my red line. I have my Dynon D180 connected to my radio, so the Dynon gives a visual alert and there is a loud beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppp through my headset. You have to hit a button on the Dynon to silence it, but it keeps coming back. I was really sorry and pissed to hear that first alert. The ambient air had dropped to 60F and I was hoping that would be enough, but it was not.

Only one solution at this point - raise the red line alarm point on the Dynon. I forget what it was originally set at, but I raised it to 255F and most of the racket and screen alarms went away.

It's kind of funny. I was at 7,500; and didn't see anyone. We have a common race frequency and state our position, something like "Race 22 at 7,500' 322 miles out (from the finish line)." There were guys below me that I knew I was passing, but I never saw them. Never saw anyone until the finish line.

Things seemed to be going okay, but I hated the oil temps. Passed over Rochester, MN, and most of Minnesota, but when I got to Lacrosse, WI the price of poker went up.

I smelled something funny and not funny haha. I looked at the carbon monoxide indicator pasted to the instrument panel and it had almost turned black. Hmm, never did that before. Not a good sign. Crapola. What to do now? Land at Lacrosse? Press on? Pass out from CO poisoning? Realize the seriousness of the indicator? Don't be such a big baby? This is the stuff that makes air racing interesting.

I looked around the cockpit for something that might help get me some fresh air. I have kind of a gap between the canopy and the fuselage, on the left side where air always enters. I tried to fold my sectional chart to direct some clean air toward my face. That didn't work very well, and a piece of my chart wound up getting sucked out of the plane.

I had a roll of paper shop towels and tried that. I found if I held it just so, I could channel some air through the center of the roll, toward my face. My GPS said I would hit (probably a bad choice of words) the finish line in about 32 minutes so I continued on. Here is a photo re-creation:

Naturally, as I'm screwing around with charts and paper towels, I wound up drifting 30 degrees off course and that doesn't exactly get me to the finish in the fastest time.

About 70 miles from Snow Crest Ranch airport I started descending at 250 feet per minute. Of course I do not back off the throttle.

The little airport came into sight and it was pretty easy to distinguish. You usually hear a lot of position reports getting close to the finish line, but the funny thing was it was quiet. I looked at my radio and I was no longer on freq! Turns out I had bumped the radio when I was messing around with the improvised breathing apparatus. I got the radio set up right and called out "Race 22 - 10 miles" "Race 22 - 5 miles," etc.

When I finally hit the finish line I was indicating about 222 mph TAS.

Once past the finish line, it's time to pull up, cool down and calm down. I throttled back to a leisurely 2,600 RPM and set the GPS for Fon duLac.

Fon du Lac seemed to have more planes than Oshkosh. All the spam cans had been denied landing at OSH because of the extremely wet grounds and they were jammed everywhere. Turns out the race planes weren't going anywhere right now either. The regular race plane parking at Oshkosh was too wet, so they loaded everyone into a bus for transport to Whitman Field.

The next day, there was a sudden rush to get the planes from Fon du Lac to Oshkosh. I was still a little unsure and decided to take a pass for the moment. Later in the day, and after most of the race planes had arrived, my buddy Jeff gave me a ride to Fon du Lac with the intention of coming in after the airshow ended. Once I got there, I took another look at my little wheels and decided agianst it. I didn't want them sinking into the mud. I took the bus back up to OSH.

Here we are, almost all alone, at Fon du Lac.

Tuesday was going to be decision day. I had to head home, so would I either take the bus to Fon du Lac and head south, or would I throw caution to the wind and fly to Oshkosh, even if for just a few hours.

When I woke up in my tent, the decision was made. After all, I have flown my Quickie to the EAA convention for 19 years and damn it, I wasn't going to postpone the 20th visit another dad- gummed year.

The Fisk arrival procedure was messed up as usual. The FAA controllers always seem to forget they have a fast lane set up above the 100 mph C-172s and Cherokees. I can't drive 55 and they expect me to follow Cessnas and the like.

It is just about impossible for me to fly the arrival at 100 mph. Then, to boot, when I got to Fisk a controller called for "the Hiperbipe to continue for the downwind to runway two seven." Click here to see what a Hiperbipe looks like. How should I know she was talking to me?

Then, when I'm on the downwind, she says "Experimental - turn right base now!" Experimental? At Oshkosh? Who the heck does she mean?

Anyway, I took matters into my own hands and got it on the runway safely. After the long taxi in, Race 22 finally got back with the rest of my race plane buddies, back where we both belong.

Finally arrived. 20th visit for the Quickie to Oshkosh and our 8th AirVenture Cup race!

I was only going to be here about four hours, so I had to quickly collect my prop tag, commemorative mug, and my perseverance award for restoring/rebuilding my plane.

I wound up taking 2nd place in the Sprint class, with a speed of 202.15 mph. I was about 40 mph behind Klaus and Jenny in their "Delaminator." You can see the full race results here http://www.airventure.org/news/2010/100726_avcup_timesheet.pdf

and here: http://www.airventure.org/news/2010/100726_avcup.html

Note that a new AirVenture Cup speed record was set in the Turbine Class at over 400 mph! Yow!

Terry Crouch stopped by and we pulled the cowling for a quick oil tank and exhaust gasket leak inspection. All seemed well. After thumping away on my electronic fuel injection sensor bracket, and deeming it inadequate, we re-cowled it.

Now, back to that CO indicator turning black. How did the fumes get in? The engine compartment seemed pretty good, no apparent trouble there and the exhaust gaskets looked fine.

We turned to the tail cone. In previous years, I had sealed the tail cone removal joint with silicone. You can see the joint in the photo at the top of this blog. The split is just aft of the rear wing. Out of laziness, when I rebuilt the plane, I neglected the sealant.

It turns out, when I go fast, or at least when the engine spins fast, the exhaust travels along the belly and up into the fuselage split. We proved this out by filling the joint with RTV, then taping it over. Once I got back up in the air, all I could smell was RTV and no fumes. One more problem solved.

Just as I was getting it ready to push out of the spectator area, I heard a voice with a funny accent cry out "Sam Hoskins!" There was a gent reading the prop tag and he saw my name. It was John Cartledge, an Australian who was kind enough to give me a ride in his Q-200 during our visit down under, about 10 years ago. I had received an e-mail from John saying he was coming, but I had pretty much dismissed getting hold of him. Now that he was here, I barely had time to say hi and take a photo or two, then it was time to be off before they closed the airport for the airshow.

So all in all, it was a very successful event. I ran the race safely with an overall speed of 202.15 mph and came in second place in my class. I was just happy to finish the damn thing.

Now it's time to take a deep breath and make things a little more permanent. I need to reexamine the oil tank, oil cooling and those related matters. I would also really like to fly it more and work on it less.

But, it's all fun - kind of.

Waiting for things to start

It's Sunday morning at Mitchell (KMHE). If the oil temps were not a factor, I should be able to true around 205 - 209. Problem is, it's warming up already and i'm bound to be frustrated. Some tail winds, but the center of the high pressure pretty well covers the route.

I think it will be a slow run. We'll see.

Maybe tomorrow

Tonight's weather for Mitchell, SD - the starting line:

"Rain and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 10pm. Some storms could be severe, with large hail, damaging winds, and heavy rain. Chance of precipitation is 70%."

I don't want to subject my Quickie to all that. Looks like I'll postpone and leave for Mitchell tomorrow.

The Quickie in her race colors

Off to the Races

Oil temp problems still are there, but I'm going anyway. Even if I have to throttle back, I'll still be in it. I leave tomorrow, for Mitchell, SD. You can read all about the race here: http://airventurecup.com

The list just came out of who is in the race, so I thought I'd publish it here. The description of each class is listed at the bottom.

Race# Pilot Name, Crew Member, Aircraft, N#, Hometown

Turbine Class
007 Rene Dugas & Vernon Rogers, Turbine Legend - N95007, Monroe, LA
11 Walter Bestgen, Lancair IV-P Turbine N900WB, Grass Valley, CA
104 Marty Abbott, Turbine Legend, C-GUTT, Calgary, AB, Canada

Unlimited Class
"T" Paul and Pam Tackabury, Lancair IV-P N94PT, Laguna Beach, CA
23 Mark Patey, Lancair Legacy, N913MP, Orem, UT
32 Mike Patey, Lancair Legacy, N36XX, Orem, UT

Sport Class
9 Tony Crawford, Questair Venture, N94Y, Port Orange, FL
10 Keith & Tim Phillips, SX-300, N53SX, Port Orange, FL
24 Rich & Ricardo Guerra, Velocity, N724X, Plano, TX
30 Harry Hinkley, SX-300, N301E, Iowa City, IA
51 Mike Reibling, Seawind 3000, C-FVEL, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
60 Jim & Gwenn Cianci, SX-300, N6L Port Orange, FL
75 Sarah & Bob Bean, Glasair III, N75Y, Port Orange, FL
80 Keith Walljasper, Seawind 3000, N80CC, Normal, IL

Sport LX Class (Lancair Legacy Aircraft)
2 Alan Crawford, Lancair Legacy, N550AC, Buchanan Dam, TX
002 Vince Walker, Lancair Legacy, N41VR, Boulder, CO
5 Lee & Jay Behel, Lancair Legacy, N138A, San Jose, CA
50 Charles Bracken & Colin Hogan, Lancair Legacy, N550BL, Detroit, MI
52 Jim & David Thomas, Lancair Legacy, N252JT, Groveland, CA
77 Scott Alair, Lancair Legacy, N495SL, Pleansanton, CA

Sport FX
4 Paul Siegel, F-1 Rocket Evo, N4XU, Cincinnati, OH
14 Wayne Hadath, F-1 Rocket, C-FAUH, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
42 Kevin Eldredge, Sbach 342, N142WP, San Luis Obsipo, CA
#43 Bob & Cory Mills, RV-6 Rocket N600SS, Reno, NV
109 Tom Martin, F-1 Rocket EVO, C-GEVO, St Thomas, Ontario, Canada

Formula RG Blue
13 James & Sandy Redmon, Berkut, N97TX, McKinney, TX
35 Ernie Chauvin & Ron Holden, Lancair 360, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
38 Mark Quinn & William Benjamin, Lancair 360, Port Orange, FL
44 Rick Argente, Lancair 360, N360ZR, Piscataway, NJ

Formula RG Red
45 Bill Rossman & Mathias Klittich, Lancair 320, Denville, NJ
777 Craig & Jordan Schulze, Lancair 320, Grants Pass, OR

Formula FX Blue
91 Bruce & Steve Hammer, Glasair 1 TD N91LH, Lafayette, LA

Formula FX Red
37 Red Hamilton & Marilyn Boese, Tailwind, NX374WT, Fort Bragg, CA
46 Jeff Mallia & Vern Kokosa, Cozy Mk III, N46WM, Schenectady, NY
61 Tim Bovee, Mustang II, N1861D, Wenatchee, WA
86 Dave Biesemeier, Sidewinder, N3786A, Loveland, CO
93 Rich & Heather Lamb, Long-EZ N893LT, Hobe Sound, FL
99 Kerry Fritz, Long-EZ, N25KF, Lancaster, PA

Formula RV Gold
18 John Huft, RV-8, N184JH, Pagosa Springs, CO
33 Dick Martin, RV-8 N233M, Green Bay, WI
41 Dave & Diane Anders, RV-4, N230A, Cottonwood, CA

Formula RV Blue
8 John Mullaney & Dave Henning, RV-7, N808TB, Port Orange, FL
12 Alan Carroll, RV-8, N12AC, Madison, WI
21 Tom Moore, RV-7A, N621TM, Frisco, TX
27 Jon Ross, RV-8, N207RV, Northport, NY
39 Jean-Pierre Verdier, RV-7A, N37KV Conifer, CO
71 Bob & Jeanine Axsom, RV-6A, N710BJ, Farmington, AR
96 Doug Shoup, RV-4, N596DK, Ludington, MI
97 Perry Burford & Jim Wilson, RV-7, Windsor, Ontario, CA

Formula RV Red
34 Chris Murphy, RV-4, N117CM, Fort Collins, CO
63 Bob Vasey, RV-3, N13BV, Sylvia, KS

Sprint
22 Sam Hoskins, Q-200, N202SH, Murphysboro, IL
83 Dave Adams, Long-EZ, N83DT, Villa Ridge, MO
90 Dennis Collins, Lancair 235, Fountain Hills, AZ
98 John Keich, Midget Mustang, N825J, St Louis, MO
111 Klaus Savier & Jenny Tackabury, Vari-EZ N57LG, Santa Paula, CA

Sprint-LSA
3 Lynn Matteson, Kitfox IV, N369LM, Grass Lake, MI

Sportsman
64 Jeff Lange, Sonerai, N1463J, Waupaca, WI

Sportsman KR
156 Mark Langford, KR-2S, N56ML, Harvest, AL

RACE CLASSES:

The racers will be divided into categories based on engine size and landing gear configuration.

UNLIMITED:

Any Experimental Category aircraft with a Turbo Charged engine with a displacement of 1400 cubic inches or less. Class winners in both Fixed and Retractable gear.

SPORT CLASS:

Any Experimental Category aircraft with a normally aspirated engine with a displacement of 1000 cubic inches or less.

SPORT FX:

Any Experimental Category aircraft with 550 cubic inch displacement normally aspirated with Fixed Landing Gear for RV-10s, F-1 Rocket, Harmon Rocket II etc.

FORMULA RGT:

Any Experimental Category aircraft with an engine displacement of 360 cubic inches or less, with retractable landing gear That is Turbo-Charged.

FORMULA RG:

Any Experimental Category aircraft with an engine displacement of 360 cubic inches or less, with retractable landing gear. Will be divided into a blue (360 cubic inch) and Red (320 cubic inch) classes.

FORMULA FX:

Any Experimental Category aircraft with an engine displacement of 360 cubic inches or less, with at least two fixed landing gear. Will be divided into a Blue (360 cubic inch) and Red (320 Cubic inch) classes.

FORMULA SW (STEVE WITTMAN TAILWIND CLASS):

For Whittman Tailwind Aircraft with an engine displacement of 360 cubic inches or less, with at least two fixed landing gear.

FORMULA RV:

Open to Van's aircraft RV-3, RV-4, RV-6, RV-6A, RV-7, RV-7A, RV-8, RV-8A, RV-9, and RV-9A airplanes powered with an engine of 360 cubic inches or less.

Will be split into a Blue (360 cubic inch) and Red (320 Cubic inch) classes.

SPRINT CLASS

Any experimental having an engine displacement of 240 cubic inches or less.

Sportsman Class :

Any Experimental Category aircraft powered by a Volkswagen or Corvair engine converted for aircraft use.

Sportsman Light Class: Any Experimental Category aircraft meeting the rules of the Light Sport Category.

* NOTE: Formula classes are split into RED or BLUE. The Blue Division is for aircraft with 360 Cubic inch engines and the RED Division is for 320 Cubic Inch engines.

Beating the Heat

The temperature in the hangar has been in the high 90s for quite a while and I'm getting tired of it.

I was trying to fit an oil cooler somewhere into the mix a, but I really didn't have much luck. Maybe I didn't try hard enough. I know it's doable, since others have made it happen.

I always thought that a properly set up and baffled O-200 does not need an oil cooler. Once the ignition started working right, I think the oil temps got a little better.

I found a nifty adapter that will add a couple of oil cooler ports onto a spin-on filter adapter but when I tried it, one port pointed straight up and would interfere with the cooler itself.

For a cooler, I got hold of an Earls Performance, but again, not too much room.

At some point, I just decided "screw it". Fly with what you've got. I am getting tired of all the messing around. I'm just going to fly the race and if I have to throttle back to keep the oil temps below 240F, so be it. Right now I just want to be in it.

I do believe there are a lot of design improvements that could be made with the oil tank. For one, a more aerodynamic shape would help cooling air flow around it. I could also add heat sinks or cooling fins, but all that will be in sump design #2.

Right now, I am doing all the things I can to make the current system as efficient as possible, such as closing gaps in the plenum. Yesterday, I did a little streamlining on the snorkels and today I'm going to add a cooling hose and point it at the sump.

And for a special treat, my new Craig Catto prop will arrive today!

The Missing Miss

Where to begin?

Today started at Bob Carter's day job at Wildlife Materials. I had purchased a bag of diodes from our local Radio Shack and Bob said he could install them in the EC3. I figured I would drop off the unit and he would install them in a day or two. I was happy to see Bob put them in them right off the bat and I was out of there in 15 minutes!

You know on Sesame Street where they play "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other"? Let's see if you can spot the two diodes. You can click on the photos to make them larger. Here is the before photo of the EC3.

And here is the after:

I'll give you a hint. R69 & R72.

The idea behind the switching diode is to condition the signal so it can be better read by the ECU. This is a fix if the signal coming from the sensors isn't behaving. Mine was certainly not behaving. In fact, it was downright rude.

For some reason, which I don't understand, as the RPMs increase, the amplitude of the waveform varies all over the place and that confuses the EC3. We have tried everything we could think of to flatten it out, but no luck. That includes stiffening up the brackets, fooling with the gaps, etc. ad nauseam.

For one final test today, I completely disconnected the backup sensor from all the ship's wiring, just to see how it looked on it's own. Here is the result. Notice how well behaved the wave is in the idle ranges, but it seems to go crazy as the engine speeds up.

While we were fooling around, I stuck another AN3 bolt joining the trigger bracket and the angle iron brace, attempting again to reduce vibration.

Perfect conditions for a flight test. Today is was 98 F in the hangar and the official temp on the ramp was 94 F. Even though it was a long taxi in the heat, I took no chances with the mods to the ECU and used our 5,500' runway. By the time I got to the departure end, the oil was already up to 135 F.

Takeoff is always strong, since the trouble doesn't happen at lower RPMs. Takeoff normal and I shallowed the climb to 800 FPM to keep the cylinder temps down. Because of clouds I only climbed to about 4,000', but the OAT was still 79 F and my density altitude was about 6,500'.

Leveled out, put the pedal to the metal and here we go. The RPMs climbed to about 2,800 and I turned off the mag, electronic ignition only. The engine remained smooth.

Went faster and tried it again. The engine remained smooth. Holy s**t, this might work.

Went faster yet and saw the tach bounce off 3,100 RPM. Haven't see the engine go that fast in a month of Sundays. Switched off the mag. The engine was still smooth!

Talk about elated... I kept flipping the ignition selection switch, trying to get a failure and there was none. We finally got it beat! Unbelievable!

Well actually, the root cause is still there, the misbehaving waveform. Tracy Crook's mod is a fix for a deeper problem and I still want to fix it, but at least I know I can race.

I let Sandy know right away and my second call was to Craig Catto who informed me that he was going to start making my new prop today! Certainly icing on the cake.

And best yet, when I got home, my grandaughter made fish tacos for dinner.

Four Tries, Four Strikes

And I was so optimistic...

Had all intentions of killing the miss today. Started by verifying the spark plug gap was set to .027", which is the range that Klaus recommends for high compression engines.

Wasn't the best day for all this. The outside air temp was about 94F and the winds were gusting to 20 kts.

Flight test #1 - Removed the back up sensor from the bracket and tied it back, to ensure that it was not interfering with the primary, in any way. We theorized there may be some mutual inductance between the two sensors, which are 18 degrees apart, through the trigger wheel and for any inductance in the wires sending the signal to the ECU. Theory and test failed.

Flight test #2 - Set the primary sensor to a very reduced air gap of only .014". We did this since we seemed to have improved results on the ground by tightening up the gap. Test failed.

Flight test #3 - Swapped both sensors. Maybe we just had a bad sensor. Test failed.

Flight test #4 - Did a dynamic propeller balance. Theory being that if the prop were out of balance, it might be messing up the sensors. I know my prop is about of balance right now, so I was willing to give it a try. C-Rod just bought a very professional system and bent over backwards to help. We started with an imbalance of about .47 IPS (inches per second) and when finished we got down to a very respectable .13 IPS. The engine is now nice and smooth, but the Test Failed.

Oh yeah, still have high oil temps.

On the plus side, my lovely wife had a nice dinner waiting for me.

Happy 4th of July but No Joy in Mudville

Over the last few days I have been trying several things and thought I'd catch it up, before going out for a 4th of July picnic.

Air gap - I had the scope out the other day and a couple of people much smarter than me. We were getting the miss, on the ground, at WOT. The Electromotive manual says to have the sensor air gap set to .030 to .060, depending on the trigger wheel style. At various times, I had been running it in the .030 to .040 range. Just for grins we tried setting it to .060 and it ran worse.

Then we went the other way and set it to .020". (Remember, I have a run out of .003" for the mounted trigger wheel.) Unbelievably, the miss disappeared (on the ground). Then we tried setting it to .017" and it was still fine.

Unfortunately, the subsequent test flight failed. Got to altitude and running on the ignition only and the miss was still bad.

Terry Crouch urged me to go the extra mile and "make the sensor support strong enough that you can hang the airplane on it, without it flexing". So, I trundled down to the lumbar yard and bought some 1/8" angle iron. I fashioned a stiffener to the sensor plate and mounted it on the two nose bolts. No lightening holes. This tractor quality part does not flex. (I still have yet to try rebar reinforced concrete, but that may have to be next).

Today's flight test - failure. No change in the miss characteristics. Rats. The engine actually backfired when I was switching from BOTH to IGN.

Talking to Terry some more, we wondered if somehow the backup sensor might be interfering with the primary. The plan is to make a single flight with the backup sensor removed from the system and see if that has any effect.

A couple of you have inquired about variations in the air gap due to wobble in the crank or prop extension. I haven't checked this relationship yet, and promise I will on the next visit.

Happy 4th of July

Sam

I am still getting this frustrating miss, which seems to be emanating from the Electronic Ignition (EI). The miss only seems to happen above 2,500 RPM, which is why I never experience it on the ground. One more time, here is the setup.

I have one Slick mag set to 25 degrees and the EC3 timing was previously set to 25 degrees with the engine running at WOT, on the ground. I have 9:1 pistons, LS1 coils and Magnecor racing plug wires. Electromotive 1/2" sensors.

Yesterday, I replaced all the automotive plugs with NGK 3035 (was Denso Iridium IK27, but no local sources) and cleaned the aviation plugs - no help.

I braced the sensor support bracket - no help.

I checked and adjusted the runout of the trigger wheel to .003" - no help. I have .030" air gap between the sensor and the trigger wheel.

Today's symptoms, in flight. 5,500' msl, 6,500' D.A. OAT 62F

At WOT and ignition set to BOTH, I only get about 2,950 RPM (should be 3,100 with this prop). The engine is fairly smooth but I have seen it smoother.

On MAG only the RPMs drop about 100 RPM, but remains relatively smooth - for running on a single mag.

On EI only, I get a BAD miss. Adjusting the mixture from full rich to lean seems to have no effect.

I think that's about it. How do I fix this?

Calibrating the Oil Temp Sensor

I was hoping beyond hope that the Dynon oil temp sensor might be reading incorrectly. I was hoping that I might have a bad connection which might cause it to read high.

No such luck.

With the assistance of Prof. Charley Rodriguez I ran the engine and got it up to almost 220F. We took several comparative readings in the oil sump and found that the Dynon sensor and the lab quality thermometer agreed within a degree or two.

Today I will work on stabilizing the EFI sensor mount to eliminate the miss, then will figure how to cool the oil. I have a couple of ideas there and do have an oil cooler waiting in the wings if I decide I will go that route.

It's Hot Today - long post

So now, I have two issues - a miss in the engine at certain engine speeds and hot oil temperature. For right now, I'm just going to talk about the oil temp.

My oil temps are high, even after the addition of the aluminium sump. Let's look at what I have changed since I started on this huge rebuild.

Old *** New

Carburetor *** Electronic fuel injection

Straight inlet to carb *** Snorkels to throttle body

1 Mag & LSE ignition *** 1 mag & RWS ignition

WOT 3,050 RPM *** WOT 3,150 RPM

Steel sump *** Aluminium sump

5" prop extension *** 7" prop extension

4" inlet rings *** 4" inlet rings

Plenum baffling *** Plenum baffling

Cowling with big exit *** Cowling different, but same area

Steam gauges *** Dynon FlightDeK D180

Wing out of alignment *** New wing properly faired in.

Crappy paint *** Beautiful paint

I called Harry Hinckley, up in Iowa City, and asked if he might take a look . Harry has a highly modified Swearingen SX300 and he really knows his business and he said to come on up.

It was really hot out. Just leaving the pattern at Carbondale the OAT was 84 deg. At just 1,000' the temps started coming up so I throttled back. I had to hold it down to 2,450 RPM, then even lower just to hold the oil temp down to 230! My cylinder head temps were:

#1 - 346

#2 - 383 (#2 is consistently 50 deg hotter than the rest.)

#3 - 330

#4 - 364

When I got close to Iowa City, the ambient air suddenly dropped to 74 and my temps dropped too.

Harry looked it all over and gave more compliments than I thought I deserved. He identified three things (actually four) that I should address. He said I should have exit ramps where the exhaust exits below the firewall, I should plug all the baffle leaks to force more air around the cylinders and I should add a better ramp to smooth the air exiting the cowl. (The fourth item was to fix the miss).

We shot off to the hardware store and picked up a tube of silicone and got to work. Harry magically fabricated a couple of ramps - something I had been meaning to do for several years.

After I got the plenum off, we started caulking everything. We probably closed up 5 square inches of leaks.

The whole day, there was a sense of urgency with threatening weather to the west, and Flight Service was calling for big boomers in the P.M., but they never materialized. About 4:00 I was ready to head home and see how it helped. Harry pulled out the SX and Greg Zimmerman rode shotgun to form up and see what they could see. Harry said all the control surfaces were in alignment - so that is good, one of those things that you can't really see while in flight. He also said that it was pretty.

The air above was still in the 72 deg area, o I decided I could climb to 5,500' and maybe things would be cooler there. It was fun seeing the SX300 in formation, and naturally Harry blew the doors off of me.

But was was the result? Sadly, not much of a change. I still had to throttle way back to keep the oil temps down. My cylinder head temps were:

#1 - 316

#2 - 368

#3 - 310

#4 - 343

It appears that the cylinder head temps were better, but these were recorded with an OAT of 77 deg. Not quite sure. The oil was just as bad as ever.

I think we improved the cylinder cooling. and my Delta P (differential pressure between the top of the engine and the bottom) was higher.

This is all quite discouraging. On the two hour trip home I resolved to bite the bullet and install an oil cooler, which I really didn't want to do. It will add expense, weight, and increase overall cooling drag.

When I got home, I started looking over the Dynon support forums and I saw there was some discussion, a couple of years ago, about calibrating the oil temp sensor. When I installed my new Dynon system, I meant to do this but never did.

The proper method is to immerse the sensor in boiling water and it should be pretty close to 212. Unfortunately, the sensor is at the rear of the engine, and I have to pull the whole engine to get at it.

As I was mulling all this over at 4 A.M. today,it occurred to me that I could do this without pulling the engine. I can fly and get the engine nice and hot. Once on the ground I can have someone drop a very accurate lab thermometer that I just happen to have, into the oil pan. Can even keep the engine running. I can simple compare those temperatures and see where I stand.

If I get no luck there, I have already ordered the oil cooler parts and can start on it this weekend.

Working on the Miss

Still have the persistent miss in the Electronic Fuel Injection/Ignition (EFII) system. The symptoms are very similar to the trouble I had last year and at that time I had positively diagnosed the issue as vibration in the aluminium sensor bracket.

My first thought was to stiffen up the new steel mounting bracket, but I thought I would go after the trigger wheel runout first and see if that yielded any results. Depending which document I am looking at, the allowable runout for a 7 1/2" trigger wheel should be .003" - .006". My initial check seemed to put it at .006.

I got hold of a dial indicator clamped it in the bracket and filed each tooth until now I am about .0025" of a perfect circle.

I test flew it today and the miss was still there, but it seemed to kick in at 2,870, rather than the former 2,820 RPM. Again, I am looking for 3,100.

Now, it's time to see about stiffening up the bracket.

Wish me luck. I am so tired of all this.

Finally Smashed Some Bugs

Finally got up in the air today after being off more than seven months! Sometimes I can't believe how much I seem to drag my feet.

Overall ,I am pleased with the result. The OAT on the ground was about 85 degrees and at 7,500 feet density altitude, it was about 67. At my normal cruise setting of 2,600 RPM, the temps stayed around 230 (red line is at 240F). It was only when I tried to go WOT the temps licked at 240. Also, my cylinder #2 has higher temps than the others.

This is a lot better than the carbon fiber sump and I think I should be able to get it a little better with some tweaking. I expect be covering that on the Q-200 Engine Group.

Oil Sump

Just thought I'd throw up a couple more photos.

The first shows the atrocious safety wiring job. The second shows the indicator I made, this morning, to check engine timing with an automotive timing light. It will be removed for flight.

The New Oil Sump & An Engine Start

Overall, I have been messing with the new oil sump. There was some fitting that I had to do, like moving the filler neck, making a dipstick, etc.

Here was the first go-around. You can see the interference problem with the engine mount.
I prevailed on a local welder friend to move the filler neck and to insert a patch. The mounted plate you see is just temporary so I could pressurize it a bit for leak testing.


This thing has a large opening at the bottom so I can gain access to the six mounting studs. The old Continental sump had the mounting screws on the outside, but I had David change them to the inside to make the flange neck wider and more robust. At least that was my theory.

I went with a thinner bottom cover plate than David had provided, in order to gain a little more cowling clearance. I wasn't sure if I would get a good gasket seal, so I doubled the number of mounting screws to 16. Now it looks like something off of a locomotive steam engine. Obviously, I have no idea what I am doing here.

Last Sunday I cobbled enough of it together to actually start the engine. After a little coaxing I managed an actual start and it ran pretty well. This was pretty significant in that it verified the new EFI sensor mounting assembly. I will still have to fine tune the timing adjustment but I am definitely in the ballpark.

I let the whole thing set for a couple of days but when I came back I was dismayed to find about 1/2 cup of oil on the floor. Almost every screw had oil slowly dripping off of it. I drained the oil and tried to figure what to do next. It looked like the sealing gasket was dry and that the oil was migrating through each screw, so I took the approach of sealing the hole. After several trips to town, I found some bonded sealing washers (McMaster P.N. 94709A214) and installed them, and gave the screw threads a swipe with Tite-Seal.

This photo shows how fun it will be to change the oil. Just click on it to make it uglier.


I refilled the oil tank and will go out later today to see how it turns out.


This custom oil sump business has been a royal pain in the arse and given the chance to do it over, I would not have gone this route. Remember, the reason I went with a modified sump was solely to cut down on a bit of drag. The costs do not seen to outweigh the potential gain.

If I can't get this working right, there is always the Sawsall.

Wish me luck.

So, What's the Deal, Sam?

I'm starting to get e-mails from people, wondering what I'm doing. I know, it's pathetic that I'm not flying.

My big hang-up has been getting my custom oil sump resolved. As you may know, I made a low profile sump from carbon fiber and it seemed to do the trick, except that it didn't dissipate enough heat. David Posey was kind enough to offer to build an aluminium one. I'm still fitting that one and coming up with a satisfactory dipstick.

So should that take 5 months? Actually, no.



I have also made some changes to the ignition sensor mount and I think I should have some success with it.




I am hoping to get the new sump installed this week. I need to get my ass in gear.

Getting Re-Motivated

This says it all...

01-01-10 Happy New Year!

Another decade behind us, how about that? I'm glad we survived it, but in many ways it was the decade from Hell, wasn't it?

Sandy and I had a nice dinner and we sampled a nice bottle of wine that she had gotten me for Christmas.

It started out low key and we watched a 1969 Rolling Stones concert DVD, had a few more glasses of wine, but then...


We didn't stay up till midnight.



New Year's Day was bright and sunny here in southern Illinois, but it was 18F when we got up.

One of my favorite things to do in life is to go out and fly on New Year's Day. It just makes a good start to the year. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do this the last couple of years, because I was down for the big overhaul.

After a half hour pre-heat using a hair dryer, I pushed the mighty Q-200 out and flew over to Marion (about eight minutes away) and picked up Don Bartlett. This ride would have three firsts; first flight of the year, Don's first flight in the Quickie, and the first passenger ride I've given on the first of the year.

By then, the ground temp had gotten up to 24F. We didn't do to much really, just flew a few circles, demonstrated a stall, and back in. Don is very experienced so I wasn't making a sight seeing trip - but it was fun. With the current exhaust set-up I don't have any cabin heat and I have a couple of pesky air leaks.


After we flew, Don showed me the sweet little Champ he is annualling and then it was time to get back to Carbondale.

It was good to aviate today and so again, Happy New Year!