Hi Doug,

 

Well, the Texas heat is still with us, but only in the upper 90's, not triple-digits.  We had about 50 days this summer in the triple-digit territory and I'll have to say that I gave out before my cooling system did.  Highest coolant temp I saw on the water was 220.  But with a 23# cap and running an ethlene-glycol mix, I felt ok.  I don't think I could say that if it went much higher.  Keep in mind that this is during climb out where I'm pushing it pretty hard.  Oil temps will sometimes hit 230, but that is after the first cooler.  The second cooler brings the temps down another 10-20*.  These are worst case readings, temps in cruise climb and cruise are lower, of course.  I measure water temps coming out of the engine and again after the radiator, and oil temps after the oil/air exchanger and again after the oil/water exchanger.  Overkill, but I had the extra channels, so I used them for this. 

 

All in all, I'm happy with my cooling system and don't plan on making any changes.  It has more reserve than me or my pax.  I have noticed a lot of buildup on the radiator fins (not bugs).  That can't help the temps any.  I need to keep an eye on that.

 

One addition that I may consider before next summer is to add water spray to the main radiator to use if things start to get out of hand.  A quart reservoir would probably be sufficient.

 

The only other issues has been a small but nagging oil leak, and tuning the EC-2.  I finally figured out that I had a wiring error on the EC-2 PCM (Programming Control Module), which prevented the auto-tune feature from working, and a defective PCM.  Having corrected both of those, I am still working with Tracy to try and figure out why the EC-2 MAP table gets corrupted mysteriously and without warning.  I'll post something for the group after we find and fix the problem.  This only seems to be a problem with fiberglass a/c, so you RV types have nothing to worry about.

 

I've burned the packing out of the Hushpower II muffler many hours ago.  It had been nice an quiet... for the first 30 minutes.  Not sure if there is an answer for that one unless I want to install a turbo-charger.

 

The real "jewel" has been the c/s prop.  This allows me to cruise at around 10.6 gph at 4200-4500 rpm, 153 TAS.  Until recently, I had been cruising at 5200 rpm, burning 14-15 gph.  Speeds are about the same.  Keep in mind that I normally fly at 3500-5500 msl.  I anticipate lower fuel burn at higher altitudes.  I'm planning a trip to Galveston in October and I can try out this theory then.

 

Mark