Hey all,

 

It’s been a few weeks since I posted a progress report.  I’ve had a few bugs to work out, the most significant was with the fuel senders.  I have the Vans capacitance system built into my wing tanks, and am using a RWS EM-2.  So I also ordered the Vans Capacitance to voltage converters.  I even asked Vans before I bought them if they were 0-5 volts variable.  They aren’t!  They actually are digital, either 0 or 5 volts and they vary the frequency depending on the capacitance.  This was causing a problem for the EM-2, giving me very goofy fuel, oil temp and water temp readings.  I didn’t realize the fuel readings were bad, because I wasn’t looking, and hadn’t started calibrating yet.  But the temp readings were going from 66000 to zero to a normal reading and back again.  It didn’t seem to matter if the temp probe was hooked up, if I used a resistor, or grounded the lead.  I still got the goofy readings.  After lots of work tracing wires and disconnecting components, I finally figured it out.  A couple phone calls confirmed the Vans part won’t work, but the Dynon one would.  Now the Dynon converter is installed and everything works as it should.

 

So the bottom line is: don’t use the Vans capacitance to voltage converters, use the Dynon ones instead.

 

The big news is I have the inspection scheduled for Friday.  I still haven’t tuned the engine yet, but everything else is done.  The “tuning the EM-2” post couldn’t have come at a better time.  My engine runs, but not smooth at all settings—especially 22” where I should start the manual tuning process.  It surges a couple of inches up or down from 22”.  So my thought is to find another setting where it is steady, set the mixture there, then run the auto tune.  But as always, any thoughts from those who have gone before are always welcome.

 

By the way, what octane fuel is everyone using?

 

I’ll bring the camera with me Friday for the inspection, and make another post with some pictures then.

 

Chris Mallory