Tracy (and other),
First, continued thanks for the feedback. Like Jim said, "You are making progress". That is very true, I am so far ahead of where I was in August 2007, when trying to run this engine and the original combination of igniters/coils burned out at 3300 RPM. I have a much better electrical system (that I know the details of), control of all the critical circuits, and the engine RUNS! Good things will come.
Tracy, good advice to get on the same page with terminology. I will start with the MIXTURE INDICATOR, rather than a shotgun approach.
1. EM2 Mixture Indicator (MI) - lets sort this one out, I'll try to explain how I understand the MI, and hopefully we can come to a common ground. My notes on tuning keep coming back to the general goal of: "Mixture Knob at 1200 with Mixture Indicator reading 1 BAR for the engine throttle settings, except for Idle where you want 60% or 1+ bars".
My understanding is that the MI on the EM2 Standard Display Page 1 is:
A. MI is right above the voltage reading (Yes I have EGT connected, now I know what those other 4 bars are to the right).
B. MI is 2 BARS HIGH TOTAL. So when I say "50%" I mean "1 BAR". If you define the EM2 display as having 4 LINES, and count
from the top to bottom, Line 1, 2, 3, 4. The MI is at lines 2 and 3.
C. My understanding is that 'stoichoimetric' is at 1 BAR
D. My understanding is that if the MI is below 1 BAR then that indicates LEAN, and visa versa, above 1 BAR indicates RICH.
E. My understanding for tuning goals, is that when the MIXTURE KNOB is at 1200
1. Low MAP/RPM - my goal is to have the MI reading at 1+ BAR, or around 60% because a little RICH is better at LOW RPM.
2. Medium to high MAP/RPM - goal is to have the MI at 1 BAR (or 50%)
3. High MAP/RPM - goal
is to have MI around 1 BAR (or 50%). I want to avoid running too lean (below 1 BAR / 50%) to
prevent burning vavles, etc.
F. My understanding is that using the EM2 Table View or Track View, the MI is at the far right and it is a total of 2 BARS
HIGH (again Lines 2 & 3). So the corresponding statements about 1 BAR/50% hold here as well.
Tracy you wrote: >>2 bars is less than 20% of full scale. How can it DROP to 30% from 2 bars? What is your definition of 2 bars? We have an obvious problem with terminology here.<<
This has me completely confused, obviously.
2. I will work on the electrical/alternator system as a priority. I think I know where the problem is, should not be hard to fix (I hope).
3. Jim: You said I should be able to idle down to 850 RPM. At my lowest throttle setting, when I start the engine the lowest RPM I've
ever seen on the EM2 is around 1500 RPM. I can't drop it any lower than that, the throttle level just does
not go any further down. And I am letting it warm up before starting the tuning. I gotta tell you it is a joy to just sit there and listen to it run smoothly.
I'll stop here. Thanks,
Mike
PS. is there a way to simply 'REPLY TO' a posting in the flyrotary list, from that listing page (
http://mail.lancaironline.net:81/lists/flyrotary/List.html )?
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Mike Fontenot
Apex Consulting & Services LLC
Lakewood, Colorado
303 / 731-6645
mikef AT apexconsultingservices DOT com
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