Mailing List flyrotary@lancaironline.net Message #52664
From: Bill Bradburry <bbradburry@bellsouth.net>
Subject: RE: [FlyRotary] Re: Oil pressure change...wow (and other stuff)
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:29:20 -0400
To: 'Rotary motors in aircraft' <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>

Chris,

If you have thermocouple wire all the way, I wouldn’t change it out.  The thermocouples used in the EM-2 need to be grounded.  Are they?

Could you have a loose connection in the tach wire?  Does the engine change any when this happens or is it just a readout change?

Have you changed the MP that the staging change occurs?  If not, try it and see what happens.  You can always set it back.

 

Tracy is back now…  :>)

 

Bill B

 


From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Chris Barber
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 1:19 PM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Oil pressure change...wow (and other stuff)

 

Bill,

 

Sorry about the convoluted message.

 

Actually, I think I was describing only two additional problems.  Both have been mentioned here and so far no joy on a fix.  The first one is that at around 6000 rpm, my EM2 tach cuts out and drops to a reading of zero (sometimes it flashes 3000ish is as its going to zero).  Should I back it off to around 5800 rpm I can slowly advance the throttle and get the tach to not cut out to about 6300 rpm, however, any power reading over about 6300 and the tach reading drops back to zero until I retard the throttle a bit.

 

Before Tracy left for Co he emailed that I try adding a 5-6000 resistor in the tach wire with a capacitor to ground.  I did so, with various resistor wattage to no avail.  Either the behavior did not change or it showed zero all the time with the higher wattage resistors.  Not unexpected if I understand the resistor thing.  It was during my failed attempts to resolve the tach issue when I noticed the original oil pressure drop.

 

The second issue mentioned is that my EGT readings, which were originally working, started jumping all around, reading from a couple hundred degree's to obscenely high readings such as 6000/7000/8000 degrees.  It is happening with both EGT sensors.  I have checked the sensors, the connections midway through the wire run as well as into the back of the EM2. The wires are thermal couple from the engine to the monitor.  I am about to replace the thermal coupling form the mid point to the monitor with standard wire to see if that makes a difference.  Absolute precession is not my goal here, but consistence with be nice.  Right now, it is really annoying since it keeps setting off my alert light and keeps flashing on the EMS.  This sucks since I have become conditioned to ignoring the alerts.  I  have considered asking how to disable the readings until I figure out more.

 

A third issue I did not mention is my staging star is staying on all the time, even though it seems obvious it is running on all four injectors.  Obvious as when I cut primary injectors or secondary's, the engine keeps running along after a bit a of stumble to get its bearings. Just started noticing that. 

 

I will try to record the pressure readings if it occurs to me when I am out there later today.  Should allow me better comparison.

 

Chris


From: Rotary motors in aircraft [flyrotary@lancaironline.net] on behalf of Bill Bradburry [bbradburry@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 11:30 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Oil pressure change...wow (and other stuff)

Chris,

The oil pressure spec for the Renesis is 51 lbs at 3000 rpm with an oil temp of 100 C.  I imagine that it should be close to the same for your engine as well.  My guess is that you are still getting a low pressure indication.  When I started mine the other day, I noticed that I was reading 71 lbs at idle when the oil was cold.  As the engine warmed up and I increased the rpm, it stayed in the range of 60-70.

 

In your msg below, what does this mean?

 

.  (on top of my RPM's cutting out around 6000 rpm - can slowly inch it up to 6300, with power to spare- if I go slowly, but cuts out at rpm over 6300 and change on the EM2 and an EGT reading issue).

 

It seems that there are three problems in that sentence on top of the one about the strobes???

 

Bill B

 

 


From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Chris Barber
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 9:51 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Oil pressure change...wow (and other stuff)

 

Since my oil pressure was down a bit following my pressure repair I decided to take heed or some of the comments regarding one of the possible causes as presented here.  It seemed to be the easiest that I could try.

 

So, I shelled out the bucks for some Royal Purple 50 (actually, 20/50 IIRC).  Geezh, I thought the 30 weight and 40 weight was pricey at $8 and $10 a quart, this stuff was $16.00 a quart.  I drained about 2 to 3 quarts out of the pan and out of the filter and replaced it with the 50 wieght.  So, now it was a blend of the 30 and the 50.  I cranked up the engine and my oil pressure was up by about 10-15 psi.  WOW!  I did not expect such a dramatic increase.  I had just run the engine earlier (before I went and purched the oil).  Before the change, my idle pressure was around 28-30.  After the change it was in the low 40's.  The most psi I was getting  before the change was about 50-55 psi at 6300 rpm.  After the change it was at about 72 psi at 6300. 

 

I let her idle for about ten minutes and all seemed good. So, since my temps seemed good and steady now that Outside air Temps were have now dipped down into the low 90 I decided to taxi around a bit.  Yep, I sometimes enjoy taxiing around in my very expensive go-cart. 

 

The engine was running sooooo smooth and strong.  I was feeling pretty damn good about it all.  Since I was moving around on the ramp where there was quite a bit of traffic following this weekends big 'ol Wings Over Houston air show, I reached down and switched on my nav/strobe lights.  At the exact instant of turning on the light (which, btw, are on my secondary alternator circuit) the engine started faltering and wanting to stall out.  WTF!!!  I switched to the B computer and things smoothed out.  Back to A and had to add throttle and mixture to keep it running and it was still rough.  Back to B to make it  back to the hangar.

 

Once back at the hangar, I checked the MAP table (RWS EM2, btw) and nothing seemed changed from earlier.  Kinda sounded like fuel was having trouble getting to the injectors.  I would think to look at the injectors first, but am not inclined to focus here too much since the engien smoothed out when changed to the B computer.  Since both computers use the same systems, it seems to be isolated to the primary computer.  Please, correct what I am missing here.  Since my judgment was clouded with anger, I put everything back in th hangar for the night.  This good good bad good bad stuff is taxing and discouraging.  I feel I am so close, then this nonsense.  (on top of my RPM's cutting out around 6000 rpm - can slowly inch it up to 6300, with power to spare- if I go slowly, but cuts out at rpm over 6300 and change on the EM2 and an EGT reading issue). To quote Mork....."Heavy sigh".

 

Trying to wrap my head around where to start on this latest PITA gremlin.  It had been running as close to perfect as I could have imagined.

 

All the best,

 

Chris Barber

Houston

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