A couple of weeks ago I got to join with another local EAA chapter which
had arranged a tour of the GAMA Injector operation just south of Ok City in
Ada, OK. Their specialty is selling their own replacement injectors for
Lycoming and Continentals and they balance each one to the particular engine
in order to allow lean of peak operations, etc. The part I found
interesting was what they learned about exhaust systems from fabricating
numerous ones and running them in their test cell.
From their experience their really were two failure points with the first
being between 15 and 19 hours and the second being about 95-110 hours.
The first failure point was usually due to vibration or installation issues
while the second was usually a from the materials not being as
robust as needed to survive the long haul. If their exhausts made it
past the 110 hr. point they were very confident they would go for a very long
time.
On a similar note, are any of you using slip joints with
springs (or without) when you fabricate your exhaust systems?
I also have a conversion concepts engine mount and the tubing on
left side interferes with the manifold that came with my 13B and it will
require me to run two distinct exhaust manifolds instead of
the Racing Beat type that is a
continuous manifold. Are there any special rules of thumb /
lessons learned when running two distinct manifolds like that?
Thanks for any insights / opinions.
Doug Lomheim
RV-9A, 13B
OK City, OK