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It's nice to be flying again. After 8 weeks of no flying, I was starting to
go stir crazy.
Prop strikes are no fun. I advise avoiding them where possible. My
insurance company (AIG) probably didn't like it either, however they were
extremely professional and easy nice.
The whole episode gave me the opportunity to tear down the engine, which I
had purchased used about 350 hours ago, and inspect for damage. I'm glad I
did. See the attached photos of my camshaft and you can see that the
numbers 3 & 4 intake lobe is munched. I don't know when the damaged
occurred - whether it was due to the prior owner or the time the engine sat
between installations.
But it is fixed now. The engine was zero timed and runs beautifully.
Interestingly enough, it seemed to run fine before too! However, I was
giving up a significant amount of power and I can now better understand why
I had the slowest 360 known to man. But those days are gone. Read to the
end and I'll tell you the results. But first I have to tell you about the
near disaster on the first flight.
Although I built this plane and did all the engine work/installation myself,
the engine overhauler (located at another airport) basically required that I
have an A&P deliver the engine to them and pick it up. Since the insurance
company was paying, I used the A&P to R&R the engine. He did a really neat
job and was a good guy, but he switched two oil lines around. I didn't
notice the difference, as there more than a few oil lines coming off the
engine... mistake.
Ground run-ups seemed fine, and I adhered strictly to the Lycoming break-in
procedures. That meant I never got the oil temperatures above about 150
degreees. All seemed fine, so the next day I took off for a two hour
flight. All the numbers looked good, but the oil temperatures didn't settle
into their typical 185 degree range. Instead they kept climbing. And
climbing. I immediately headed for lan. To make a long story short, NO oil
was going through the oil cooler due to the swapped lines. Pressures were
good, and the filter was filtering, but the oil cooler was basically air
temperature cool upon landing, in spite of my 250 degree oil temps.
A day to sort out the problem (and make sure I had no warranty issues) and I
was back in the air.
I'm no longer the slowest Lancair 360 out there. The engine was rebuilt
using 9.5:1 pistons from Lycon and a camshaft that had all its lobes. Other
than that it is completely stock on the internals, no head work or anything
else. The numbers were great. 6,500 feet (7,300 DALT), 24" x 2400 RPM, 62
OAT, cylinders heads around 310 each, EGT's around 1400 (100 ROP). KTAS
around 203-204. Before the engine work I was truing around 194. Big
difference, no additional fuel burn! I still can't figure out what was
happening to all that fuel before!
Happy ending...
Matt
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