flyrotary@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

Steve,

My staging point is set at 18" which ends up being around 3300RPM. So far I still havent been able to prove for certain that the corruption is linked to switching A > B, much less determine that it only happens above or below the staging point.

All 4 of my injectors are the same - checked them all with an ohmmeter. They are all of the type that does not require an external resistor.

Mike

----- Original Message -----

From: Steven Boese

To: Rotary motors in aircraft

Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 9:13 AM

Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: frustrating couple of days

Mike,

Is 3000 rpm above your staging point? If the corruption of the controller only happens when changing from A to B above the staging point, check to see if one or both secondary injectors have lower resistance than specified.

Steve Boese

-----Original Message-----
From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Mike Wills
Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 9:50 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: frustrating couple of days

Dave,

Thanks for the offer and the input. Swapping my EC into your plane would be a desperation last move due to all of the hassles involved. And as you say would not necessarily prove anything.

I said it happens when I'm preparing to fly, but that isnt entirely accurate. It would be more accurate to say that in the past it has happened only when I have switched to the back-up controller which usually occurs in prep for flight. This past weekend I had fired it up and taxied down to EAA for lunch. After lunch I taxied back to my hangar and prior to shutting down I ran the engine up to about 3000 RPM and switched to the B controller. The engine died and I had to copy the A program to B to get it to run on B. Switching to B was the only pre takeoff checklist item I performed.

I think about the only thing you hit on here that might be related is heat. But hard to say without more instances of failure and a way to link cause and effect. On saturday when the engine quit on B the engine was completely cowled. On sunday when I had the second instance of an engine quitting on B, the upper cowl was off but the lower was on. When the staging point was lost the upper was off, lower on. Yesterday when the engine quit on the first attempt at switching to B the engine was completely uncowled. Maybe I'll run it up a few more times today uncowled and if it works OK, try putting the cowl back on and see if I can induce failure. Doesnt seem likely though that anything under cowl could cause this sort of problem.

This may all have to wait until Tracy weighs in with his opinion. I'm not inclined to make drastic changes until I hear from him.

Thanks,

Mike