Mailing List flyrotary@lancaironline.net Message #38928
From: Al Gietzen <ALVentures@cox.net>
Subject: Tips on tuning
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 12:50:37 -0800
To: 'Rotary motors in aircraft' <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>

Chris/David;

 

. In our

installation the primary fuel injectors are in the 500 cc range, where

the secondaries are in the 1500 cc range

 

Do you really mean 1500 cc/min?  That’s huge. It could make tuning a bit difficult.

 

Here are some suggestions for getting mixture tuned based on my experience of re-tuning about 15 times, or more (remember the settings corruption problem I used to have?):

 

Get your coolant temp readout working.

 

Set mixture correction table to default (all zeros) if not already there. Read the manual again; modes 3, 6, and 9.  Also read again the EM2 manual about ‘Mixture Display’ and ‘Editing the MAP Table’.

 

Normally one would first set Mode 3, but if your secondary are really that large, you may wish to go to mode 6 first, turn the Program knob toward the left, and push the store button a couple of times.

 

Go to Mode 3 at about 22” MAP. Adjust until the mixture monitor (MM) is about mid range (or oscillating, which it will do around stochiometric) with the mixture knob at 12:00 oclock.

 

Then go back to Mode 6 and adjust until the mixture is fairly constant above and below the stage point.

 

You could then get a first pass with Mode 1, but I have found it sometimes simpler to just go to Mode 9; advance the throttle about 0.5” to 1” MAP at a time, turn the Program knob to either about 9:00 (if you need to go leaner) or 3:00 (if you need to go richer) and press the Store button as many times as you need to get the MM about mid range. At MAP below about 12-13” you’ll want it richer, so set for the MM to be at or near the top. Continue up until maybe about 22”. Make sure you keep a stable MAP as you make the adjustment. You can cut the running time by taking bigger steps in MAP as you go you, because the idea is to edit the in-between entries from the EM2 with the engine off.

 

Then, with engine off, display the mixture correction table on the EM2 and edit the bars that look out of line to get a reasonable smooth variation.  Look at the trend of the bars approaching 22” MAP and continue the trend up (probably up) gradually flattening out up toward 29 -30.  If the values are going to max or min of the range, you’ll have to re-set mode 3 to shift the distribution up or down.

 

Now you are ready to go to auto-tune.  I have found that auto-tune (with mixture knob at 12:00) makes it too lean for best idle; so I usually start the auto-tune at about 12.5 – 13” MAP.

 

I would think an ideal IDLE power setting would

be where the plane does not require braking to remain still.

 

I have found that with my 66” dia – 80” pitch prop my Velocity doesn’t move until engine rpm is somewhere upward of 1500 rpm.

 

I get about 5500 static with my 20B, and about 5600 on takeoff.  With adjustable pitch you will want to get some higher numbers.

 

Hope you find this helpful,

 

Al

 

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