THill182

Thanks for the quick feedback; that is what I thought, but I wanted to confirm (need the IO550G cylinders). I'll probably go with standard steel cylinders, since that is what I had and they worked quite well for almost 1300 hours I think (need to verify for sure). I have another thread where I discuss my oil usage woes. Long story short, the engine has a lot of blow-by, and goes through a quart every 3 hours -- maybe less. Instead of doctoring around one cylinder at a time, I figure I get a Top. For various reasons that are a long story, the bottom was overhauled after the last top and with cylinders at a few hundred hours (the case cracked at the propeller?!). So my plan is to fly this plane (which is a great plane) for another maybe 1000 hours (or more), and then get a new motor. I know that there are probably cheaper ways to do this, but my engine has been very dependable for the past (over..) 10 years -- I hope to get another maybe 7 or 8 years out it without major engine work.

I have a quick question: I decided to just go ahead and do a top overhaul on my 2000 M20R, which was converted to 310HP and 3-bladed via the standard STC. My question is: Do I buy IO550G cylinders, or IO550N cylinders, and does it matter? It seems there is ambiguous info on this out here? When the engine was converted, I did NOT get new cylinders, so that was an IO550G. Further, is the Nickel Cylinder add-on price worth it? It seems at current prices they run about 300$ extra. Please let me know if someone has the definitive answer on this. I want to order the cylinders ASAP as they might be back-ordered (new Continental), and prices are bound to go up again!!! Thanks!

I was once asked how I can justify the cost of a new WAAS GPS in an old (former) plane; I realized that I cannot justify owning a plane, and in the end an airplane is just the best, most efficient, and most fun way to convert discretionary income into noise. Actually, I have found that many pilots drive "modest" practical cars, because when you buy a new luxury car every 3 years (I know several people who do that), frankly the financials around that are just as wasteful (almost)...

For what it's worth: I also had for years a local mechanic maintain my Ovation, and in fairness he did a GREAT job, and was available on-demand. When he retired I took the plane to a well-known Mooney specialist for a thorough annual. That was expensive BUT the plane felt, flew, and just performed better and more reliable for the following year. Bottom line in my mind: The fair price for an annual is what the market will bear. Of course it is our responsibility to find the best deal and compare prices -- to keep the shops honest. But reality is that there is probably only a single experienced and well-known shop nearby where you live. And if you want to use that shop then you pretty much pay their prices. Further, none of the mechanics or shop owners I know are exactly "wealthy" and most are "good guys" working hard trying to make a living dealing with government regulations (can't imagine trying to run a shop in California), taxes, lawyers and liabilities, unreasonable owners (I do know a few of those), lack of talent ("I can fit you in for that work if you can find me someone I can trust and hire to do the work...."), ....

Same here. I had a non-FIKI system retrofitted about 8 years or so ago. I lost about 6 kts in speed. Only trouble I had so far was some electrical problem in the panel where a cable shortened out. The reason I spent the (considerable amount of money): The only time I was ever scared while flying was in non-predicted icing with no way out over the mountains. I resolved to (1) set the bar a lot higher for my go/no-go decision, and (2) get TKS as plan B. I used to fly a lot for business, mostly around the mid-west. It has happened a few times that I needed to descend through an icing layer on an approach, or "linger" there for a few minutes. The system really works well. I could see the ice on the unprotected surfaces (the wing-lights), but the rest of the plane was clean. I would say, it takes the "pucker-factor" out of flying through an ice layer. Having said all that: Now I fly mostly on personal trips, and my risk threshold is very different. In general, it is my opinion that regardless of Non/FIKI, I would never want to motor around in predicted icing in a non-turbo single engine airplane. Maybe a turbo is a game-changer (lots of people say so) since you can outclimb the clouds more often. In summary: I am glad I have the system, as just another Plan B and way-out, should I find myself in icing, a situation I promised myself I will try to avoid any way I can....

Your mileage may vary and no guarantees. Fixed the 400F+ CHT on #5 for sure, and brought temps in line. I have other problems with my engine however, as you will see by looking at other posts of mine. But I don't have a temp problem.

That's interesting, and also to respond to carusoam' s question (why a separator on an IO-550): I put this on a long time ago, when I first got the plane with an engine that had problems, one of those was a lot of blow-by. In retrospect and knowing what I know now, the air-oil separator is not the solution to such problems. Anyway, I had everything looked over to rule out oil leaks, and also had some of the old & brittle hoses replaced connecting to the separator. I changed the oil, and next I will continue flying at reduced power (55%-60%) to see if I get the reduced oil usage, as I had seen in the oil-change-interval before the current one. If so, then I will go back to 70% power as normal. If oil usage then goes up, then I am pretty sure that it's time for a top overhaul (after roughly almost 1,200 hours -- not great, but not unusual looking at the Ovations for sale). But I still have some hope that maybe changing/cleaning out the hose may make a difference -- probably not.

OK; this is a continuation of my engine saga of apparent excessive oil use here: Upon further investigation, we now found excessive oil coming out of the air-oil separator of my IO550G (see STC# SA02033AT, http://www.cessna170.org/OilSeperator/OilSep.html#Install). In fact, after 15 hours of flying after my last oil change, I had a black "cake" on my nose gear doors -- which came from the vent of that air-oil separator. Note that I don't see any oil on my hangar floor. One explanation is that I have excessive blow-by, creating pressure in the engine, which perhaps is overwhelming the air-oil separator? But I am grasping at straws here: Is there another explanation? Maybe the life time of those air-oil separators is limited (mine is 11 years and probably 1300 hours or more old, or so). Clearly I am blowing oil overboard, but mostly while flying and hot it seems. What puzzles me is that I had the problem (excessive oil usage, about a quart every 3 to 4 hours), then it went away for no apparent reason for one 35-40 hour oil change cycle, and now it is back. Does anyone know under what condition this air-oil separator would start blowing stuff overboard, instead of returning the oil to the engine? Really puzzled by all this -- and obviously trying to avoid experimental top overhauls (all the compressions are pretty good still).

Oil after 15 hours or so is black --so that would point to blow-by. I'll give it another look-over and then may just go ahead and redo the top, perhaps just a few cylinders...

For what it's worth. The oil usage in my Ovation continues to totally befuddle me. That, after 12 years or so of ownership! So here it goes again: All was well until when I first started this thread a year ago. Then I went into the annual with Don Maxwell (GREAT shop!) and nothing unusual showed up: Compression looks normal for cylinders with 1000 hours, no leaks. Then I noticed that one of my cylinders (#2) was running much hotter CHT than the others, cruising LOP; that forced me to run at 60% power most of the time. It also now was summer. Strangely, my next oil change now was done burning maybe 1Qrt per 8 to 10 hours, and the oil analysis showed a perfect engine. Then it turns out that swapping the injectors between #2 and #3 returned my engine to very nicely balanced operation. I am near-certain that the two were swapped during the annual. Anyway, now I started running at 65% to 70% power again like I used to. CHT's rarely exceed 360, and then only on climb-out. Now it also is colder again, and oil usage as described initially returned. At least it appears that way. But I cannot quite put my finger on it: - I make sure the dipstick goes in the same way every time - There are no signs of clear oil leakage, no drops on the floor, no mist on the windshield. - It seems I am burning a qrt per 3 hours now (!) I have not had the opportunity to let the plane sit for 2 weeks or so, to see how much oil shows up finally at the dipstick after flying. I continue to use Camguard. Can it be that now that it is colder, and due to the use of Camguard, oil just keeps sticking to the cylinder walls for longer periods of time? It is all very confusing. At this time my plan is to put myself on as regular a cadence for a while as a I can, i.e., check oil always every week, and use that as my yard stick, while maintaining oil level at 6 to 7 qrts. But is it possible that the ambient temperature will affect how quickly oil collects into the reservoir? Unfortunately, my CHT/EGT instrumentation doesn't record any trends. So no help there. Very frustrating: Do I or do I not have an engine problem. And if there is a cylinder problem, which one? One mechanic said that #5 shows burned carbon on the plug. The other said that there is a "step" on the hot (I think) compression check, for cylinders #3 and #4, the ones in the middle. But there is no obvious bad cylinder, or audible blow-by when checking. The plane runs great, cool, smooth...

Just wanted to close the loop on this: Turns out that the nose wheel was too "tight". The way I understand it, there is an adjustment that tightens the nose wheel pivoting mechanism. When we tried to move the nose wheel by hand it was almost impossible to do so. A small adjustment made it loose again, and the steering is back to normal. I am not sure how that happened, but most likely, "something was adjusted" during the annual, and this one was too tight. The lesson I take away: During a high-quality thorough annual, many things get checked and tweaked. As is really normal best-practice, be very conscious of how everything feels when picking up the plane after such annuals. There is simply a good chance that a few things need to be re-adjusted. Of course, we all know that, and every annual is always a bit scary....

I have been flying my O2 and now 310HP converted (O3) for over 10 years, and all-over. My plane has a non-certified inadvertent TKS system on it. I can say that flying into high country going West from the plains is always a challenge. While my M20R easily climbs to 18k ft or above, if you have downdrafts and mountain wave activity as you usually do, I have often found myself having trouble maintaining 14k feet or even 12k feet. Beyond Ice, winds-aloft is an issue over the mountains, and a no-go for me when over 40kts or 50kts (depending on my routing) at my altitude. To get over the mechanical turbulence from high winds and rising heat you need to get probably well above 20k ft. Note that most MEA over the really high mountains around Denver are 16k, so you need to get to and maintain 17K going East; again, not a big deal in good weather, but not something I would want to attempt with 40kts winds howling. Very hot summer days also will further diminish climb performance. Regarding TKS: it is very effective. I opted for inadvertent because I consider it an emergency fix for me (not much ice usually around OK/TX etc). Frankly, for myself, I would be very hesitant to go into known icing in a single engine non-turbo plane. I never flew a turbo'ed plane myself (flown in a few as a passenger), but been around people who have them. Turbocharging seem very beneficial for ice avoidance and probably more important than TKS or boots to quickly climb through icing and find ice-free altitudes; by the way, Mike Busch also wrote about that here: http://www.avweb.com/news/maint/182808-1.html. So to summarize: In my opinion, the M20R is a great personal airliner, which has served me very well. In fact, I have never been left stranded anywhere because of mechanical problems. But being non-turbo means that while you can get to 18kft or higher, it is not easy nor guaranteed in the mountains, with downdrafts, and so on. If I had to fly in the mountains routinely, I would want Turbo charging, and frankly, would prefer a twin turbocharged plane...

One other suggestion (follow-up on checklist posed earlier in this thread by carusoam ): I recently after an annual had unusual (for my engine) high CHT on Cylinder 3 (Ovation 310HP; IO550G). Also forced me to lean very aggressively and fly at lower power to keep CHT's below 380 on that cylinder (only; the others showed less than 350). Long story short, the injectors were swapped between cylinders at some point or so it seemed. changing #3 injector with #2 injector (which ran coolest) solved the problem. To diagnose this, do an abbreviated GAMI test. record CHT's and EGT's running ROP and LOP, at different fuel flows graduated by, e.g., .2 to .4 GPH. Then graph it. I saw that EGT on #3 was highest when running LOP, and also went over the top first when lean-finding from the lean side. Put another way, it was running much richer than the others. Anyway, swapping the injectors re-balanced the engine very nicely. Now all CHT's are within 6F.

For what it's worth and as another root cause: After my annual Cylinder 3 would peek first going from LOP to ROP (while leaning from the Rich side), and ran so hot at altitude and LOP that I had to lean aggressively and run at less than 60% power or so, in my Ovation (310 HP conversion). Long story short, the root cause was that during the annual apparently the (non-numbered I understand) injector nozzles got swapped. When my mechanic put the #3 nozzle into the #2 (the coldest cylinder) and vice versa it all evened out wonderfully again. Just wanted to put that out there; I also first looked very carefully over the baffling but nothing seemed leaking...

Thanks for all the advice. This started to happen after my annual at Don Maxwell, and best I can recall no work was done on the nose gear (and if it had, I am pretty sure it would be right). I have no other explanation really, but it is of course possible that someone moved the plane and damaged the nose gear. Anyway, I will have my local mechanics here first check for damage; then I will try to find a local mechanic with the right tools and experience to rig it correctly. By the way, I have no chimmy'ing, and I lost my nose gear hub cap after the instability happened (after the annual). Thanks again!

I wonder if someone here can give me advice on how to diagnose this (2000 M20R Ovation): After my last annual (when an elevator skin was replaced due to hangar damage), it seems that the nose wheel is now “dynamically unstable” with respect to steering. It used to be that as the plane accelerated on take-off or just touched down, the nose-wheel would automatically straighten out (was dynamically stable), and it was easy to correct direction through small rudder inputs. Now a small input is amplified at speed, so that when I give it a small input to the right for example, as I go faster the airplane wants to veer farther to the right. It is very difficult not to get into oscillations (left-right) on take-off and landing, as the airplane feels “squirrely” until it slows down. Does anyone have ideas how to adjust this? Looking at the nose-wheel there is nothing obvious. I would like to give the right direction to my mechanic here on the field who is not very experienced with Mooneys (or else take it somewhere else if required). Thanks for any input!

For some reason I lost today my nose-gear cover -- on the airv-valve side -- for my 2000 M20R. I googled a bit and cannot find anyone who would carry those (+screws). Where can I buy those parts. Is the Mooney factory my only choice? Thanks for any guidance. PS: Part number seems to be 540022-001 for the wheel cover (with airvalve guide), and AN526-832R5 for screws.

Congratulations; I always felt that this is what the non-turbo Ovation/Eagle should have been from the beginning. Those numbers are remarkably close to mine; I converted a 2000 Ovation; except (a couple of observations): 1. Your oil temp shows as 170F; that is right by the Yellow-to-Green-Arch boundary on my Moritz gages. I always thought that running a bit higher (at/above 185F to 200F) guarantees I cook all the moisture out of the oil. So I have "winterized" my oil cooler to run at a higher and at that temp (even on hot days in the summer). 2. Your speed is about 5kts to 7kts higher than mine; I attribute that to my "accessories" -- TKS and AC. 3. That also costs me lot of payload. (But the AC sure is nice about now in OK/TX). 4. Other than that, I seem to run exactly the same at 11k ft, with 11.8Gph and 50F LOP. By the way, the biggest benefit I saw for me personally: I rarely ever now worry about density altitude departing from higher elevations in the summer -- even Sedona in the summer. Of course I always do the computations (the performance charts are dead-on); but I can now fly out of such airports with enough fuel to travel home or almost home without stops. That wasn't possible before, with 280 HP and the 2-bladed prop. HAVE FUN!

Very interesting! After my last annual I am seeing CHT's on #3 about 40F to 50F higher than the rest. All other cylinders on a very hot day, at 10k ft and LOP, 11.8 GPH FF, show <340F temps; but #3 stayed at around 380F. Not a BIG deal, but something I would like to nip-in-the-butt. Note also that #3 now goes over-peak first when leaning to the LOP side. I also suspect that it must have to do with the airflow through the cylinders. On take-off (higher angle-of-attach, and ROP), #3 runs normal or even below the others on CHT. I'd love to see your picture also, to understand better how air flows... PS: Forgot to mention: 2000 Ovation 2, with O3 conversion. Thanks for any suggestions.

I have made many trips into and over the Rockies in my Mooney O2, now O3 for a number of years. A couple of additional comments: 1. Density altitude is generally not a big deal in an O3; it has plenty of power to get off. Key is to remember the 50/70 rule of thumb (http://www.mountainflying.com/pages/mountain-flying/takeoff_dist.html) and consult your performance charts; in my case they have always been right-on. 2. Regarding leaning, the advice here matches my experience. Not an issue really. 3. Here are the biggest gotchas and scary/uncomfortable moments for me: - Mountain waves: They are real! If you see more than 35kts to 40kts winds at your altitude (12k ft to 14k ft usually), be prepared that as you get close to the mountains from the East you suddenly will have a hard time maintaining altidue at 12,000 ft, or cannot stay at 14,000 ft; also happens as you fly through the mountains. - Turbulence: That is the show stopper! Again, anything over 50kts winds at altitude and I will not go. 40 kts is questionable, and I ALWAYS carefully choose a route that does not put me on the downwind side of some higher ridges. Also consult VFR charts for notes about turbulence. Also, in the summer, turbulence gets worse as the day goes on often, particularly over the desert south (from ABQ going West); however, that is mostly very unpleasant and you can often outclimb it. But the mechanical turbulence from high winds with potential rotor clouds is something that you DO NOT want to experience. - Higher is always better. You don't have many if any "plan-B" landing sites if the engine quits. It's a bit like flying over water: When you think about "what-if" enough, the engine starts to sound funny and you get (I got) scared. I took a mountain flying course a while back, and it was a lot of fun and useful. But I don't think it is necessary. You SHOULD read however Sparky Imeson's advice here: http://www.mountainflying.com/Menu/mtn_fly_menu/mtn_fly_menu.html, or buy the book. I think everything you need to know is in there. The rest is local knowledge I feel, so for example, when flying in the real-high country there are certain box canyons, preferred routes through passes, and such. As a practical matter, follow the IFR routes and altitudes, and you are guaranteed not to hit anything. And it is still plenty beautiful anyway, even when 2k above the terrain (which makes me feel a lot safer anyway). My 2 cts worth

The M20R is a great travelling plane; much more efficient than the C182. I came from a C182RG many years ago. If I were to give advice about some gotcha's: 1. The engine needs to be babied; study and be conscious of temperatures, power settings, etc. There is lots of info out there (e.g., Deakin's articles on how to run the big-bore Continental). My 182RG had a Lycoming O540 which pretty much was bullet proof, and you just ran it "however"; can't do that with the IO550G. 2. Landing took some getting used to for me. Speed control is critical for landing the M20R. The most common M20R accident by far is bouncing on landing, and then hitting the prop. Landing the M20R is not difficult at all, but you cannot force it onto the runway when your speed is too high to land. I never had to go-around in my C182RG; I had to go around in my M20R on a few occasions when I couldn't make the landing speed work. Practice will automate that over time.... Else: Great choice!

That is what I wonder about: So first, I get pretty much the same numbers. Very similar. But when you look at your MP at 9000ft (21.5), according to the M20R performance chart, the max MP listed at 9,000ft is 21.1. Clearly you can get more. I always thought that the performance charts above 8000 ft show WOT, and so the max MP you can get out of your normally aspirated engine...(?)

First let me say: I am strictly an amateur -- the computations were mostly to satisfy my own curiosity and I have no idea if they are really meaningful. Having said that: I was curious because I routinely would get more MP than what the standard charts said. Obviously, outside conditions (temps, pressures) have a lot to do with that. Also, I am using the K&N air filter and they claim you get up to one Inch more MP than the off-the-shelf standard filters (I never verified that myself with before-after tests; see http://www.challengeraviation.com/accessories.html ). Running LOP, where you burn (almost) all gas, I understand that the HP that is generated is mostly a linear function of fuel flow (FF). Since I fly in cruise at 2,600 RPM I just wanted to know for myself how different FF's convert into percent-power based on the original 270HP my engine used to have (Ovation II) and after the 310HP conversion. Anyway, I also see CHT's in the low 300s LOP, with about 12.5 gph at altitudes above 7000ft or so. My speeds are perhaps 3-5kts less which happened after I added TKS (wing is no longer as efficient). One difference is that I will pull back the power at lower altitudes so I also end up with 12.5 gph or so (below 13 gph); again that is my "weirdness" being overly conservative (when I fly low I usually don't go far, so it doesn't matter; on long x-country trips I usually go above 10,000 ft unless weather doesn't permit it). It seems from this discussion (and others) that one of the operational differences is that most other Ovation drivers choose a lower RPM for cruise (2400, 2500); I always cruise at 2,600. Not sure if that will have an effect on longevity. My engine does run exceptionally smooth at that RPM.

Regarding the "math" (how to convert fuel flow to HP when running LOP), we had a discussion about this here: Regarding this being a bit "conservative": Absolutely! I enjoy flying, and 10 minutes or less time saved on most flights isn't worth pushing my engine for me. However, I have a "bad" history of engine work. There is a long story, but the short of it is that when I bought the plane used with a few hundred hours, the previous pilot ran it according to book numbers (ROP, and 75%). I continued the same, and saw very high CHT's and also burned a lot of oil. At well under 800 hours I had cracked cylinder heads and a top overhaul. Since then I am running LOP and at "reduced power". Recently I have seen some interesting fluctuation perhaps in oil usage, but overall the engine has been doing well for over a thousand hours. I don't know what the best practices really are, other than pushing the engine less is probably better than more, and flying often is good...

I think I understand the original question, as I have been wondering the same; for reference, attached is the power-setting chart for the 310hp Ovation. According to what I have read about running the IO550 LOP, presumably, above 9000 ft or so there is no Red Box because the engine doesn't make enough power. BUT that after paying for a premature engine overhaul, I "baby" my engine, and usually don't run above 65% power in cruise. According to the power chart, this happens somewhere at/above 12,000 ft. That is actually consistent with my observations, i.e., I can get more MP at 9,000 ft (or above) than what is listed in the power chart for 70% power. I actually made my own simplified power chart (see PowerAt2600RPM-M20R, attached) to figure out what 65% power means when running LOP, relative to my original 270HP and now converted 310HP. I usually try not to exceed 21.5 Inches of Mercury while cruising at any altitude, and then run LOP and lean using standard procedures to 50 degrees LOP. I then use the attached table to verify that I am below 65% power (at/below 13 gph ff). Usually, I can get 65% power all the way up to 10,000 ft or above... Above 9,000 ft that gives me 170kts or better (note that I have a TKS system and air conditioning, both of which slow you down a bit). Hope that clarifies things a bit. Curious what others think of this procedure, and or experience regarding engine operation on engine longevity.