It has been a long struggle it seems. Things just seem to be running in slow motion as the weeks and months fly by. I did taxi this pm, but started on ether. It hot-started easily now that I changed back to the standard   BUR7(9)EQ sparkplugs. It also started after sitting an hour. Big hope now is that it will cold start tomorrow. I am going to go ahead and call the DAR even though I’m not really ready to aviate on the rotary yet. Have lots of tuning to do on the controller and my one new rebuilt injector is kaput. It has a lifetime warranty, but will probably buy one from NAPA since I can have it in one day and will keep the replacement one for a spare.

For those of you who are interested in the gory details of where I’ve been for the last 4 months do not hit the delete button. Others good by!

Thought I was close to being ready to run and fly just about the time that the 2 twin hurricanes straddled us here at Treasure Coast Airpark in Sept. They set me back over a month, but thank goodness for the minimal damage we had compared to some of the neighbors.

When I first started trying to crank, it was running raw fuel out the exhaust. There was a lot of cleaning plugs and gnashing of the teeth. Changed to the recommended (NGK B9EGV) plugs  by someone on the list to use the single post plugs. Meantime Tracy came down and we discovered I had the injectors that require the 5 ohm resistor and  then I also discovered that I was running  10 to 12 psi too high in rail pressure. Of course both of these things  were causing it to try to start too rich.

After  correcting these two items and cranking on fluid, I had to trim the internal EC2 trim down as low as it would go to get the A/F to come into range. Ran pretty good now , but could only get 4000 RPM with my big big prop. Ed Anderson kindly loaned me his high time prop from his 2.17 gear box days ( and Ed I haven’t completely forgotten to send the shipping money) and I could get it to over 5000 rpm.

Next thing was that nothing happened if you  turned on the cold start switch while running. Next it would die on either A or B channel if I engaged a disable injector switch. Checked the pin 30 on the EC2 until I was blue in the face and it checked properly. 5 volts when switches were in run mode and ground connect if either the disable injector switches or the cold start were activated just as they should be.  Mailed the controller back to Tracy and it checked out OK on his bench. He brought the controller down to the Lakeland RV flyin in Jan . He and Ed Anderson both planned to come over Sunday and help me get it straightened all out. Ma nature did not cooperate. The ceiling was down to the cell towers when I was driving home early Sunday AM to be home when they arrived. The controller had been locked in Tracy’s airplane when I left and they were still at the motel. Checked the weather with WX Brief from River Ranch Airport and decided to go back to Lakeland and get the controller.

When I put it back in the airplane, nothing had changed. Tracy came down a week or so later and brought another controller with him. Meantime I had installed a simple toggle switch to the pin 30. It still did not work on the original controller. We installed the new one and it actually started on fuel for the first time ever. Now I was convinced the original controller was bogus from the get-go. So next morning after Tracy left, I rewired back to original 3 switches to pin 30. NO JOY!  Sun of a gun it was just like the old one in its symptoms. Meanwhile Tracy had checked the chips in the first one and found the cold start circuit had been blown in both the processors.  Sent the 2nd one back and he returned the first one with new chips.

I put the simple toggle back in permanently. The engine still would not cold start or hot start! Today I changed the plugs back and probably did a dozen starts on FUEL. PTL!  Now just hope it starts tomorrow when it’s really cold. It so the cowling goes on and some serious taxing and high power running will begin.

If you tired reading this, imagine how tired I am of being frustrated and Tracy is of change chips in burned c