Hi Guy's
Thanks to everyone for the "congrats" & advice. I'm sorry I didn't respond
sooner but I've had a busy week. As some of you may recall, I'm only a
student pilot, but now that I've got an airplane to fly I'm going to change
that quickly, however right now I will continue to take full advantage of my
test pilots presence in the cockpit. Unfortunately he's had to return to his
regular flying job, so testing is on hold again.
Fortunately my exhaust manifold only had a small leak at the gasket and had
not cracked. This required me to remove a fair bit of stuff, so I also
removed the intake to ensure that all was sealed well there as well. The
heat damage was closest to where the ECG ports are blocked off by the intake
so I wanted to ensure this was not the cause. I also put some firesleeve
over the oil injection lines for a little additional protection. This took
longer than I wanted as my test pilot anxiously paced back and forth, but 2
subsequent flights were uneventful.
The next morning my long awaited mixture monitor, finally arrived in the
mail. (Canadian customs has been checking & delaying everything lately) So I
installed this and found that I'd been running a little too much on the rich
side. Static run-up at 1psi boost increased by 200 rpm. We had begun to
assume that we would need to use some boost to equal a NA engine, so had
planned to use all boost on next flight. Reading last weeks posts, I've read
Dave's suggestion that this is indeed the case. Off-line e-mails with Leon
confirms this as well.
I had assumed that I was over propped, but I phoned Dave Atkins to talk
about his prop and found that his is the same 76" 3-blade prop. The only
difference being that he has reprofiled his blades. I was ready to take
Charlie's advice and remove one blade, and probably still will at some
point, just for comparison purposes, but for now I want to experiment a
little further with the 3-blades.
Anyways... as we were taxiing out for another test flight, we were at the
far end of the airport, about to enter the active runway on really busy day,
when the EWP seized again! Now this is still the original pump that had
seized previously as the replacement pump has vanished in the mail (probably
in customs). Leon has tried to have it tracked without success, so as it was
insured he sending me yet another one. As the previous pump had worked
trouble free for 5 hours recircing a bucket and several more hours of ground
testing, we had decided to commence flight but while keeping a very close
eye on it. This is why I caught it immediately and shut down. I was able to
free it up again and it still works, however I consider it to be a no-fly
issue until I receive the replacement pump.
When we shut down at the far end of the airport the controller asked if we
wanted a tow, but as my tow bar still has a ball hitch on it for use with my
ATV (I gotta change this) I knew we were going to have to pull it by hand.
By the time we got back across the airport everyone at the terminal had
heard, including my girlfriend. A 737 arrived so we provided some
entertainment for the pax and just in case anybody else missed it the
mechanics at the hangar that I share took lots of pictures. My only response
was "I'd rather pull a rotary, than fly a Lyc" :-)
Hopefully I will receive and install the replacement EWP soon and resume
flight testing. Other than the seizing, I really like the way the pump has
performed so far, so I really hope it works out. As they use these
successfully for rally cars in OZ, I feel that any punishment that I can
give it would be mild in comparison, so it is likely that I was just unlucky
enough to receive a dud. Another slight possibility is that I had an air
bubble that got into the pump and caused an airlock. I'm 99% certain that I
had all air removed from the system. I sent detailed pics of my system along
with a full description of it's operation to Leon and he felt that it was a
very good design. The only thing that I can think of to change is that I
will add an inlet fitting to allow me to fill the system from the bottom up.
This will ensure that I have 100% of all the air removed, just to eliminate
this possibility.
During the flight so far the coolant temps have stabilized at 95C and
peaked at 100C, but I'm suspecting that when I begin to use full boost, I
will begin to have a cooling problem. On the right side I can easily add an
outlet duct to the heat exchanger which would add to it's efficiency,
however the left side this is not possible due to the location of the turbo.
I may have to look at increasing my cowl exit area. Before I do this I'd
like to take cowl pressure & temp measurements at various locations.
So far I've done all of my operations with the EWP temp controller bypassed
to give a full 12 volts to the pump, but as soon as I begin to experiment
with cruise power settings, I will test the controller to see how it
maintains temperature during cruise and decent.
My oil temps have never exceeded 95C (203F), however I measure the temps at
the old oil filter pad, after the cooler and before entering the engine. I'd
like to get a reading from the pan to see the temp rise. The right side of
my panel is out of space for any more gauges, so I really need that EM2.
Another issue that came up during initial tests was with my hi-press fuel
injection pumps. I have 2 pumps, each drawing from a separate port in the
header tank. The one in use would continue to work fine, but when I switched
to the other one I lost all fuel pressure. Switching back quickly kept the
fan turning. After running the boost pumps for awhile, pressurizing the
header tank both pumps would work again. On the next flight, we were using
the opposite pump, when the same thing happened. Clearly this shows that the
unused pump is percolating. As they are located on the firewall at cooler
side of the engine, I was a little surprised. They were shielded from direct
airflow by a plate on which I had mounted the fuel filters and gascolator,
so I removed this, but as mentioned previously the test flight never
happened. I'm hoping I don't have to provide a blast tube to cool this area.
Comments so far from all observers at the airport are that it is very quiet
and sounds good. I've watched a video of my first flight and while sound
quality isn't perfect, I think it sounds a little like a turbine as most of
the sound is from the prop blades. This is one area where I'm very happy.
Hopefully I will resume testing within a week and able to provide more
updates. As the test flights become more routine, I will also try to do a
better job of data recording. Right now I'm still in the "holy ****, it
can't believe I built this thing and it really fly's" phase.

S. Todd Bartrim
Turbo 13B RV-9Endurance
C-FSTB
http://www3.telus.net/haywire/RV-9/C-FSTB.htm

   "Whatever you vividly imagine, Ardently desire, Sincerely believe in,
Enthusiastically act upon, Must inevitably come to pass".