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Message
Shane,
Don't
bite on every single tip that get's mentioned as a "speed" item! One item
mentioned recently from a second hand vendor (cowl and exhaust pipes)
spoke of several knots speed advantage while the plane actually took 5th place
(or dead last stated another way) in the Airventure Cup. If indeed the
plane went 10 kts faster than before the mods I'm amazed that it could fly above
stall speed before these dramatic improvements
:)
I
would add that a pressure plenum under the cowl seems to be one item on my plane
that helps it gittyup.
Dual
electronic ignition seem to be great for both power/ speed and economy cruise to
and from the races.
Read
Kent Passers book on Speed with Economy. It'll help you ask
alot of good questions.
Watch
the Subaru WRX engine progress. Lot's are going into planes now-
particularly RV's. I've flown 45 hours behind an early model Turbo'd
Subaru and it runs great! Water cooled, auto gas, etc many good
advantages. Extremely tight fit, redrive, prop choice, and design
installation may make installation too time consuming and or challenging.
Jerry Fishers may be the next one to fly and is tauting a gazillion horsepower
and a pretty little 5 blade prop. Looking forward to reading the
data.
Don't
install your horizontal tail with more than 1/2 deg nose down. Give up a
little stall speed and go faster top end. Shoot for about 1/4 deg ND, glue
it on, and take whatever you get.
Many
great tips mentioned: I have three possible adjustments to comments made
thus far.
1) the trim tab on the right wing or left may be
irrelevant. I can laterally trim my plane with 4 gallons of fuel (or 24
lbs) when solo. Me thinks trim gear totals less than two lbs. and I
like looking at it on the left on my before takeoff
checklist.
2) I use a header tank and am in the
minority. If you want more wing fuel you do NOT have to add wing
extensions. The outer bay can be converted to end up with about 21 gal in
each wing. 42 gallons is alot of fuel! The added length on
tips does claim to be a speed advantage but not a fuel benefit. Waiting on
Jerry Knapp to race me high altitude to see if he goes relatively faster than
when racing down low. Interesting question just don't know the answer.
3) A forward mounted prop governor holds little value
if you have the extended engine mount (which I'd say is mandatory) so don't get
too wrapped up in this discussion. There is plenty of room behind the
engine with the longer engine mount. Great tips on firewall mounted oil
filter and battery.
More
on speed. If your starting from scratch there were a 1/2 dozen or so LNC2
built of pure carbon. This'll save you between 30 and 100 lbs. I
know of one in Santa Barbara that I'd love to finish to see if we can get
another 1/4 kt out of this $7000 option.
Purely
comfort option. Ignore the center console dimensions and build your own to
allow 1/4" clearance from the elevator pushrod on each side and top. In
other words shrink it dramatically for happier hips both large and
small.
More
on comfort- Sit on Temper Foam and buy ANR headsets-
Non-negotiable!
When
it comes to Avionics don't buy any. They just add weight and slow you
down! Besides every year they get 10 times better at half the cost.
Unfortunatley I'm stuck in this repetitive do loop. I've got 500 hours on
my handheld (but panel mounted) ICOM and an iPAQ Anywhere Map. Good luck
making these tough decisions. In my first 500 hours I've got less than 2
hours IMC. One minute at a time on my turn needle. For the
northerners this may not be an option.
No
reported actual cases of flutter that I'm aware of. Long good article by
Martin Hollman that says we should be increasing our BIDs down the top and
bottom of the fuselage to eliminate a possible flutter mode. I liked the
article enough to believe him but not enough to back up and do the requisite
BIDs. I read it after I had painted the aircraft. Some LNC2 drivers
have done these extra BIDs. If I recall it's only relevant to the MK II
tail birds.
Come
to the Sun 100 and the Airventure Cup and you'll see several fast LNC2
airplanes. Mark Ravinsky and I have raced several times and there my be a
giant paradigm shift coming when next we meet. The unfortunate downside of
seeing so many beauties at airshows will also double your work
hours because you'll set your sites perhaps a little too high. There
are Show Planes and there are Go Planes but there are rarely Show Planes made to
Go, and Go, and Go!
Larry
Henney
N360LH
Fastest LNC2 in the Western Hemisphere. Heh, heh,
heh!
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