The plane seems to get off the ground noticeably quicker than before, even though I was feeding in the throttle slowly.  The best news is that it doesn’t seem to have the overwhelming tendency to depart the left side of the runway like it used to.  I’ll have to do some more takeoffs to see whether I was just being too easy on it, or if the rude behavior is really gone now that the left offset is removed.   Very hopeful that it’s really gone. 

The engine ran well, though I had to richen the mixture a bit on climb to stop the EM-2 from complaining about the high EGT temps.  The only real issue is the idle mixture. 

I could only climb to 1400 ft, and that happened pretty quickly.  The plan was to orbit the field a few times at my 1400 ft ceiling, and bring it back down for a cowl off check to make sure all was well.  I did noted that the climb rpm at 100 mph was 6180.  The oil was about 150 when I took off, and 157 when I was level at 4800 rpm and 138 mph TAS. Didn’t notice it during climb, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anywhere close to 200.  Coolant temp was 193 in climb, and steady in the 170’s in slow cruise. 

Post flight revealed no real problems, aside from the fact that my alt was bumping the inside of the top cowl.  I picked up a slightly shorter belt on the way home to fix that.  I re-tightened the intake and exhaust bolts, and am ready to put the cowl back on when I install the new alt belt tomorrow.