I had a very productive day at the airport today.  The problem with hard
starting turned out to be two separate problems, but both were self
inflicted.

Problem 1 - I pulled the spark plug wires from the rear rotor (all of about
6" long) to measure the resistance, suspecting an open wire.  The first one
measured the same as a new one (originally bought set of 8), and when I
tried to measure the second one, I couldn't get contact with the plug end.
The connector had been pushed all of the way to the rear of the boot.

Obviously when I did my conditional inspection, I did this when putting the
plug wire back in after checking the compression.  The spark plug wire, if
touching the plug at all, would have been barely making contact.  I suspect
that it was probably jumping the gap.  When cranking, it probably wouldn't
have jumped much of a gap, but when running, and charging, it probably was
doing better.  I couldn't get the boot to slide back into place, so I just
replaced it with a new one.

The plane started right up, and ran just as it always had.  That is until I
switched to controller "B"

Problem 2 - When I switched to controller B, the engine ran terrible.  It
didn't die, but I think that it would have if I left it there a while.
While I was troubleshooting the hard starting, I decided to fix a coolant
leak that I have had for a while on the intake manifold.  With the colder
weather, the leak was more than the usual little puddle on top of the intake
manifold that I saw there on occasion.  I had bought a new intake gasket
with the intention of replacing it, but just hadn't gotten to it.  When I
replaced it, I also decided to put a film of Ultra Gray silicone, on each
side, just to make sure that it sealed.  Well, what it sealed really well
was the vacuum port that I was using for a MAP input to the controller.  In
trouble shooting, I had reversed the two MAP lines on the controller, so
originally, it was on controller A, but now it was on B.  It wasn't until
the engine was running normally on A, that it became noticeable.  Before it
ran lousy on both controllers.

After running it some more, I noticed that I still did have a slight coolant
leak, which I think was on the coolant connection of the turbo.  On the back
side of course.  Since I was suppose to ship the turbo off two weeks ago, to
have the hybrid upgrade done to it, I decided to go ahead and pull the
turbo.  Especially since the weather was warm today.

While the turbo is at the shop, I'm going to pressurize the cooling system,
just to make sure that I don't have any other leaks.  That way once the
turbo comes back (3-4 weeks) I'll be all set to go.

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

Steve Brooks
Cozy MKIV
13B Turbo