flyrotary@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

Thanks Tracy;

I feel better now. I have a few airframe details (stabilizer fairing, cowl pin retention) and another tethered take off power trial before the aircraft is ready.

I need to make a cockpit checklist and a flight test card, although the first flights are really about getting control of the plane & engine, then landing without incident. Any fancy stuff like speed trials or aerobatics are supposed to wait until after the second or third flight :)

I need to spend more time reading the EC-2 EM-3 manuals, and verify the A & B controllers are programmed the same (default setting.) Right now I can idle, and select any power setting with one setting of the mixture control. There is a slight lean spot above idle, and I can feel the staging point for the secondary injectors, but it does not require any fiddling to operate well.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tracy <rwstracy@gmail.com>
To: Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Wed, Dec 18, 2013 11:04 am
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Cooling Water Temp

I wait for a minimum oil temp of 120F before going to takeoff power setting.

Tracy

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 17, 2013, at 22:45, shipchief@aol.com wrote:

Today I got a chance to sneak out to the airport and play.

The RV-8 cowl was off due to changing the oil, so I gave it a pretty good inspection, reassembled it and started it up.

I was planning to do a tethered trial at take off power, but the weather was clear and cold with low overcast and no wind, so I taxied about while waiting for the engine to warm up.

It never warmed up. The oil temp came up to about 156F, but the water temp came up to 128F while idling or slow taxiing. I did 4 aborted take off, the water temp rose to about 138F.

I have heard that this is not warm enough for full power. I did accelerate to 4850 RPM (2200+ prop RPM) before I let off the brakes and concentrated on rolling down the runway, lifting the tail and throttling back @ about 45 MPH.

I don't have a thermostat in it right now, the one try with a thermostat ended in an overheat shut down before damage. maybe I didn't have all the air pockets burped out. So I might have removed it prematurely.

What does the group say about warm up before take off, and about using a thermostat?