I may just take you up on that one Chris. I'= ;ll know more when it gets a little closer to October.

Mark

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 12:47 AM, Christopher Bar= ber <CBar= ber@texasattorney.net> wrote:

Mark,

Please let me know when you are in Gal= veston, it is only about 30 minutes away from me. Of course, you are = welcome up at Ellington (EFD) as well. Rocket Scientist and Astronaut= s do frequent the area <g>

I may have my fuel strake issue resolv= ed by then and be ready to fire up the new 'ol 13B again.

All the best,

Chris Barber

Houston

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

From: Mark Steitle

To: Rota= ry motors in aircraft

Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 11:= 29 AM

Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: 20B Update = from Mark?

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 trip= le-digit territory and I'll have to say that I gave out before my cooli= ng 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. &nbs= p;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.&nb= sp; Oil temps will sometimes hit 230, but that is after the first cooler.&n= bsp; The second cooler brings the temps down another 10-20*. The= se 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 aga= in after the oil/water exchanger. Overkill, but I had the extra chann= els, 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 h= ave noticed a lot of buildup on the radiator fins (not bugs). That ca= n'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 sp= ray 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 tunin= g the EC-2. I finally figured out that I had a wiring error on t= he EC-2 PCM (Programming Control Module), which prevented the auto-tune fea= ture from working, and a defective PCM. Having corrected bo= th of those, I am still working with Tracy to try and figure out why t= he EC-2 MAP table gets corrupted mysteriously and without warning.&nbs= p; 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 instal= l 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 recent= ly, I had been cruising at 5200 rpm, burning 14-15 gph. Speeds are ab= out the same. Keep in mind that I normally fly at 3500-5500 msl. = ; I anticipate lower fuel burn at higher altitudes. I'm plan= ning a trip to Galveston in October and I can try out this theory then.

Mark

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 10:15 AM, <DLOMHEIM@aol.c= om> wrote:

Howdy Mark...the majority of the nasty high temperature days should be= over in your neck of the woods now so I was wondering how your coolin= g faired this summer, etc.? Have you pretty much gotten any = ;"bugs" worked out of your installation so it has basically becom= e more automotive like (a simple turn key operation)?

Thanks for the update.

Doug Lomheim

RV-9A / 13B

Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog,= plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.