Browncbr1

i buy from leatherhidestore.com based in NC. will coordinate and ship to in-state perforation outfit if desired. most any leather will pass burn. I sent mine to skandia for only one of the part23 tests for $100 some hides have "other national standard" test sheet that comes with it.

Wow

Seeing how there is a 2 year wait list on vision jets, that might be true

I like the feel of takeoff trim for landing.. on short final I glance to confirm it’s about TO trim. If I’m doing a short soft field landing behind the power curve, it’s full up trim, but that’s almost never what I need. I’m usually loaded up with people and bags though

As others have given you good advice, it is critical to let the sealant cure for about a week. Temp and humidity impacts cure time. If you put fuel back in too soon, it will leak after a few days. the red honey is good for sealing tiny spots like pin holes or air bubbles. Sometimes the leak entrance in the tank is a long long way away from the exit on the outside. I had a leak at the aft wing skin lab joint that was actually coming from the top leading edge rib that was only leaking when tank was full.

If you don’t mind sharing, How much $?

Go over it again with the red honey top coat again. It takes a few tries sometimes.

What was the issue and where was it overhauled.

Would like to know how many have had catastrophic engine failure and how many of those were early SMOH time. Would be interested to know what was found to be the root cause.

Brian, the cost of converting a o-360 to an io-360 doesn’t makes sense. Lots of cowl work. an E model makes sense for your mission if you want LOP, better climb and speed than a C. They are as fast and some faster than J models. Manual gear is better and less MX IMHO.

I have a two blade top prop.. it is much quieter than McCauley props I’ve flown behind. The McCauley has a pulsing / thumping pressure sound to it that gives me a headache…. They also have the rpm vibration restriction that is a pain in the butt.. The top prop just hums and has no rpm restriction below 24”. The book says add 3% to takeoff roll though. I’ve never had any problem with that though.

I get about 30 rpm drop on both the surefly and the slick. I think the slick doesn't have enough spark to do as well on the bottom plugs that are getting blasted by the injector. It's been a long long time since I ran this engine the other way. I think timing advance and sync is most important. I just felt that a stronger spark on the bottom is better. i have no data to back it up.

on my left bank of cylinders, I swapped the upper and lower leads so that the surely fires all bottom plugs with a larger gap. I also put a blue "B" on all the bottom plugs just to signify that they stay on the bottom because of the larger gap.

Make sure the top of your plug that touches the harness spring is not corroded. use a pin wire brush cone to clean if needed. Sometimes, it’s not the plug, but the spring that has a little corrosion on it. But, in my past experiences, it resulted in egt drop off. Atleast something to check.

Yes, thank you. .032” gap. I check gaps with my .032 safety wire. Experimental guys say they go bigger like .045.. That’s good to hear about massive performance. I just looked on spruce and was disappointed to see the price of finewires went from $75each to $120each. Massives are still $30 though. I remember surefly advising that finewires are needed, but maybe they made some changes to the mag programming or hardware? Not sure, but glad it works ok. I was an early adopter of the surefly, so I’m not sure if we have identical mags or not?

it sounds like this seal worked out... i saw some dimensions you gave, but couldn't find any part numbers on sky geek or spruce. I'm trying to source all o-rings and seals to overhaul my fuel selector. are you able to point me to your source for this seal? thanks, craig

Surefly mags are known to not operate properly with massive plugs. They need a new Kelly harness and finewire plugs. They recommend gapping about twice as wide as traditional mags. Up around .320” or more

Flex seal, tire patch kit, or 3m electrical tape. All work fine

I just received a notice of non-renewal from QBE. I had paid them $1615 for $85k Hull through December 15. I guess they are getting out all together instead of trying to raise rates.

Back at the hangar today and found tons of green all over the sniffle valve again and the hose was completely dry. It was clear to me that this valve is sticking closed. I removed it and found that although I had verified that the ball is moving inside, it would not unseat from being closed without a little air pressure from blowing. It would not fall open under gravity alone. So I soaked it again in solvent, and this time I poured 100LL through it. Nothing came out that I could see, but the ball would unseat a little better. I flew 15min for a fuel run and no steam or anything was coming out of the tube after shut down.. so I restarted and flew for 30min to atleast clean up the plugs a little better. After return shutdown, I now see steam/fuel vapor exiting the drain tube and no residue around the valve at the bottom of the case yet. I have noticed in the past that the valve elbow feels like a pretty sloppy fit. That’s how it’s always been as IIRC. Maybe I need a new valve. I also shortened the hose to make it turn sharper straight down to help shed any fluid quicker. is the fit of the sniffle elbow kind of sloppy in the fitting on everyone else’s ? for the time being, I’m going to say the issue has been the sniffle valve all along.

I’ve got some good news to report. I took the sniffle off and bathed it in my ultrasonic cleaner. I found a glob of what looks like some kind of sealant in the exit elbow tube. I tested it with my mouth to make sure the ball is moving as it should. I reassembled and started it up. wow, egts went straight up to 1300 and it was running like normal. The fuel flow was initially higher, but it settled down after about 10-15 seconds like it should to about 2.0gph for warm up. I had a 20min ground run due to traffic, but got airborne and it ran fine…. Came around after 10-15min and taxied in like normal. I didn’t see anything come out of the sniffle, so I fished wire through the aluminum fitting that’s on the cowl and pulled the hose off.. the hose is dry. I remember in the past, I might see some steam, vapor and maybe a drop forming at the end of the tube after flying. My plan is to come back out later this week and fly again and see if things are normal again. Perhaps remove the sniffle and inspect again before flying to ensure its opening to drain.

It seems that a standard 1700rpm runup clears it up, however, it also seems that the plugs have already become nasty by then, so flying cleans them up, then it purrs like normal after landing. But even if it’s the intake plenum filling up after shutdown, that still would not explain the high fuel flow indication. Just wanted to clean the sniffle and run it before spending money.

Well, the other variable is volume and velocity of air that passes through the intake chamber. I don’t think heat matters because I ground ran it multiple times and it was good and hot.. it seems like it really dumps a lot into the intake chamber after shutdown because hot starts are not the same as before.. but, you may be right in any case,.. I think if cleaning the sniffle doesn’t solve it, I’ll just bite the bullet and order a rebuilt servo.

well.,,, i found all kinds of green goop around my sniffle valve on the bottom of the intake chamber.. i found it was leaking all over the muffler as well. more than just a little. and it is like a green heavy weight sticky oil that has wicked all over.. if it was straight fuel, it would evaporate, but maybe it is mixing with the oil from the fresh bracket air filter i just installed at annual... Russ at D&G said he has seen a lot of green goopy oil getting into the intake from a bracket filter. my next step is to remove it and bathe it in an ultrasonic cleaner.... my current thinking is that it is not actuating properly and allowing fuel to pool up in the intake, thus creating a rich condition until flying the plane.. however, I don't think this would answer why my fuel flow is twice what it should be during warm up idle.. at this point, i just want to eliminate this as a possible problem. After speaking with Russ, he didn't seem to think the servo would dump fuel into the intake only after start and warm up, but then go away after a while..

No, fuel pressure is in the green. Too much fuel is going into the cylinders. I talked with an engineer at avstar and he had a thorough understanding of the system, but was a little perplexed. We settled to go back and check if any air is getting into the unmetered side of the servo regulator. That would cause the regulator to open more fuel on the metered side. So, I’m going to do the clear tube air bubble test starting at the nozzles and work my way back. He said that sometimes, the larger fuel line fittings can leak air without leaking fuel. The part that I don’t understand is that it’s fine in flight. Ff and fp are stable.