A64Pilot

With no disrespect, but I think the original poster needs to understand leaning a little better than it seems he does before he just starts leaning it out a lot more. I could of course be wrong, it just seems he may not have a good understanding You can hurt an engine at high power with the mixture knob, hurt badly if improperly done. I would advise as a min to learn the average peak, I know it changes from day to day but it’s usually pretty close, once you know what it is be sure not not lean less than 100F ROP, 150 isn’t a bad number actually during high power ops like T/O and climb, then watch Cyl head temp while climbing at least 100 kts indicated, if it climbs above 400 enrichen the mixture to get it down if it won’t come down more than likely you have a baffling problem that needs fixing. Don’t climb at Vx or Vy especially if it’s getting hot, our cooling comes from airflow of course and higher air speeds increase cooling, obviously. A plug will not foul at high power even if very rich. It can foul if low power and real rich though, a plug runs hotter at high power of course Once you’re at cruise and below 75% power, now is the time to lean the snot out of it, personally I lean it to 50 or so lower than peak, so leaner than peak, but ROP is fine too, even peak if not high power is fine. Usually to hurt a motor you need to be close to peak, have hot as in more than 400F cylinder heads and high power, remove any of those three and it’s unlikely you will hurt one. Without knowing anything about your airplane, you or your engine I can’t say for sure but your hot heads sound like to me that your climbing slow and or possibly leaner than optimum for climb power, or both, or arguably not lean enough although that’s graduate level mixture control in my opinion. If your not real sure most conservative response is be rich, rich enough that your sure your real rich when at T/O and climb power.

I would expect it to get worse if it cleaned out gunk from the oil ring

I think you’re right about the taxes, but as you say I’d call because they contradict themselves. For instance if your a resident of fl and are basing your aircraft out of State the you can fly into Fl for repairs /training does not apply to you. One flight and they say you owe taxes.

I’m going to have to see if mine builds pressure a second time, I can see the logic if it’s refilling with fuel it should as that little bit of fuel flow and 10 sec or so hasn’t cooled much of anything. As far as fuel in the cylinders it doesn’t hurt anything, nearly every other engine gets shut off with ignition, except aircraft.

? I would say the opposite most aviation piston engines are direct drive which means they have to be low RPM, reduction gearboxes bring in a whole extra layer of complexity and weight but are necessary to run higher engine RPM. I don’t know why belts haven’t been done and before anyone says that’s nuts, there are quite a few helicopters that are belt driven, and have been for decades, but I prefer direct drive. I believe a clean sheet aviation engine would have to have a least water cooled heads, that would allow car gas. Kawasaki was I think the first pent roof combustion chamber bike and they couldn’t pull off the four valve head without water cooling, so I believe that means it’s not doable, probably. I don't understand the drive for a Jet-A diesel as opposed to a spark ignition motor running car gas? Military maybe? I know they went to one fuel long ago and Companies have striven to produce products that can burn Jet-A, both Lycoming and Mercury Marine have produced spark ignition engines that can burn Jet-A for them as opposed to building Diesels, so maybe there is Government money available for Diesels?

I know, looked what happened with the RX-8 though, for automobiles I’m afraid it’s dead, as are Diesels in my opinion, yes you can make Diesels pass emissions, but it’s really, really tough and expensive. It really wouldn’t be hard to make an aircraft engine run off of car gas which is I think our biggest problem, all it would take is a modern combustion chamber, that’s why cars now can run higher compression than our aircraft engines on low octane gas, but the money to build and Certify there is no payback apparently. One advantage of a Wankel is that it can tolerate very low octane fuel without detonating, due apparently to the lack of valves. However a Wankel just isn’t nearly as thermally efficient as a reciprocating engine and there just isn’t a way around that. However the RX-8 required Premium and the engine just didn’t last often only about 60K miles, I assume but don’t know that Mazda had to run it very lean and hot to pass emissions, but they couldn’t make it pass newer emission standards and it died. Many people pre-mix fuel and oil in the RX-8 to try to make the engine last longer, Pretty sure it’s for the apex seals which has always been the achilles heel for Wankel’s, but run them hot and it kills seals. I like Wankel’s, they can be real hot rods, the turbo RX-7 made over 250 HP in stock trim with a roughly 80 cu in engine, and they are nearly turbine smooth as it simply spins and doesn’t recpriocate, but also a piston engine gets one power pulse for every 720 degrees of rotation per cylinder but a Wankel gets e power pulses per revolution so six times as many as a piston engine. ‘I think they would make a great aircraft engine, even the shape of a Wankel lends itself to aircraft.

Mine will build pressure, it’s easy to check just turn the Master on after engine has been off for 10 min or so, if it’s building pressure it will pin the pressure on the gauge What I do is after shutdown is I push mixture in with the Master still on, pressure quickly goes to zero, pull mixture fully out again and turn Master off. I also always leave keys on instrument panel except when I’m away, then they go in my pocket. Two weeks ago, the day after I did his condition inspection on his Pitts, a neighbor got hit in the back of his neck by the prop, he apparently moved it and one or both mags were hot. It would have killed him the Dr said if his neck hadn’t been fused with steel rods in it, but he was hospitalized for several days, hot mags with any fuel in the cylinder are dangerous, and when I push the mixture in to bleed off the pressure some fuel is going into one or more cylinders probably not much, but maybe enough if the mags are hot to kill you.

I would do that anyway, even if Lycoming had them stacked up. The 500 hr Gann “Performance” engine is why I bought my airplane, I overlooked the no glass, original interior and paint missing on the leading edges for that motor

As a mechanic it’s the wiring left behind that drives me crazy, and in truth very often it’s not realistically removable as it’s hopefully laced and not zip tied into bundles that go through pretty much inaccessible places. The other thing that’s annoying as an IA is most older aircraft according to the records have all kinds of equipment installed that isn't, by that I mean most everything is installed via a 337, but as it’s removed there is no 337 removing it, so records wise you still have that ADF, DME etc. That is a minor annoyance sure but it’s just sloppy records keeping, and if your paper work is sloppy, is your work also?

This IF your a Fl resident. However I believe they go after out of State aircraft if they stay some short period of time. (20 days maybe and I think that time is cumulative)This annoys me because they don’t go after Motorhomes, Yachts, cars etc, just aircraft. Scan down to aircraft temporarily in Fl, good luck on the training /repairs etc. exemption for a year. https://floridarevenue.com/Forms_library/current/gt800008.pdf It does seem to allude to the 6 moth time line but I have heard that’s not relevant that they go after all visiting aircraft, but am unsure

I think he means metal construction as opposed to composite. I prefer metal myself due to its damage tolerences and ease of repair and it’s very well known fatigue rates. However having said that I like the 4130 tube structure around me, the Meyers 200 carried that much further than Mooney, even the wings out past the gear were 4130, however this meant it was extremely labor intensive to build, Aero Commander learned that they couldn’t break even on it, it just took too many hours to build. However I believe it is the only complex airplane that has never had an airframe AD, and it’s known for its survivability, even more than Mooney. ”Spam Can” construction like Cessna, Beech, Piper etc is less labor intensive and therefore cheaper to build, composite even moreso, however it’s possibly not better as in crashworthiness. Pic of the Aero Commander line in Albany Ga probably about 1966 or so, you can see the tube steel structure and size of the tubing.

Wankel’s are cool, I wish they were further developed. They have similarities to turbines, sort of a middle ground between reciprocating engines and turbines. Mazda was the first Japanese manufacturer to win the 24 hours at Lemans in 1991 with a four rotor 2.6L (158 cu in) Wankel capable of 900 HP but detuned to 700 for the race for fuel consumption and reliability, it is a 24 hour race after all, still 700 HP on 158 Cu in ain’t bad, not even turbocharged. Of course you can turbocharge a Wankel, the last RX7 was and I think in factory trim made over 250 HP from a 1.3 L engine, the 787’s engine was essentially two RX7 engines bolted together, hence 2.6 L. To me it’s among the sweetest sounding engines ever built. Wankel's were banned in 1992 by the FIA. Mazda Wankel conversions were popular at one time in the EAA world, but as with all auto conversions there were issues usually reliability. Wankel’s died years ago as in I think 1973, due mostly to fuel consumption. Lots of power from a small lightweight engine but it drank gas, also due to very high exhaust temps it was tough to meet emissions. GM had built a very good two rotor Wankel with astonishing reliability and an expected life in excess of 500,000 miles and those of us that were driving in the 70’s can attest that regular engines were horrible then, if you got 100,000 miles you were in the minority. Unfortunately it just couldn’t get good milage so it was scrapped and instead the Vega got that wonderful aluminum block in line 4 cyl. It was also I believe slated for the Monza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Rotary_Combustion_Engine

On the whether or not a Mooney sized pressurized turbine could be built. Of course it can, it’s been done before, and fully Certified in 1971 maybe? Interceptor 400, a Garrett powered Meyers 200 which I believe is still the fastest single engine NA piston civilian 4 pax aircraft, but the Interceptor 400 was supposedly a 300 kt airplane at fl 240, probably very optimistic as all marketing claims are, but I’m sure it was fast. For those that have not flown a Garrett they are a fine engine they are a little loud on the ground but quiet in the air and unlike a Pratt they respond instantly to throttle like a piston does. http://www.meyersaircraft.com/200D and 400 Intro.html It has a -6 Garrett which is a 750 SHP engine when put in a Thrush crop duster, but it was derated to 400 SHP in the Meyers, which was an Aero Commander airplane. Being derated so much I wouldn’t be surprised if it could carry 100% power in the flight levels, or if not it wouldn’t lose much. In fact you can buy it and put it in production https://www.flyingmag.com/interceptor-400-barn-discovery/

Can’t you fly with a broken arm? It only took me a couple weeks before I could fly with knee replacements.

Actual pickling is a lot more than merely putting preservative oil in it, and maybe others can tell the difference but to me it just looks like oil. Pickling amounts to following the directions on the oil, and sealing every air entry point into the engine including the intake and exhaust, as well as fogging the cylinders with preservative oil, and installing at least one dessicant plug in each cylinder, and the dessicant plugs should be monitored and the dessicant changed if it changes color. Usually there are several levels of preservation from flyable storage, short term, long term and permeant which means it comes off and goes into a sealed can, different levels require more and more work to preserve and de-preserve. For three or four months I’d just put the preseravitive oil in it following the directions on the oil, assuming of course it’s stored inside a hangar. Keep the oil it can be reused without any problem. You can even fly with the preservative oil for some number of hours I pickled my C-85 for over four years and has zero problems, I also stored two autos for the same four years in the same hangar and all I did for the cars was put Sta-bil in the tanks that were filled and disconnected the batteries, and both cars were fine. Both are currently in storage driven rarely and only in the neighborhood as they don’t have tags because I don’t want to pay insurance on cars in storage I’ve also seen engines that were literally filled to the top with the cheapest Auto oil, sit for years and were just fine. Preservative oil can be bought one of two ways, concentrated where you add 10% to regular oil and already mixed which is of course just that. Pretty good article, just be aware that our engines are NOT new engines, a broken in engine has a layer of varnish like material on its cylinder walls and is a whole lot less likely to rust than a “new” engine so don’t freak on the 2 day comment, that for zero time cylinders surely. https://www.cessnaflyer.org/magazine/article-archives/maintenance-technical/flying-interrupted-modern-engine-preservation.html Oh and somewhere near a half of my neighborhood just leaves their aircraft in the hangar and goes “home” up North every Summer and comes back about November and has done that for years with seemingly no harm.

See I’m even confused as to how a P-51 can be Experimental, yes I know many are hugely modified and not through the STC process because there is no Type Certificate to modify for one. But by what means are they Experimental? You can’t just make your Mooney Experimental, you can if your in search of an STC or are the manufacturer but I don’t think you can just because you want to race it for example, yet obviously they can old Warbirds. But the FAA had to do something because back before the Value Jet crash their mandate from Congress was to promote and regulate aviation, so rather than come up with an entire set of regulations just for old warbirds they tried to bend existing ones to fit is my theory, just a theory. After the Value Jet crash they are no longer required to promote Aviation, just regulate it. In the last six months or so the FAA has been giving Space-X a lot of trouble, which made me wonder what do they have to do with it, they are Aviation, shouldn’t the Space agency be the ones in charge of well you know space flight? So the roles and missions of the FAA often confuse me.

To come back to this, P-51’s aren’t Certified, they are flown in limited, exhibition whatever but not Certified. Not trying to be pedantic but with the FAA in particular words matter a lot. Now the FAA has a Military Certification office that Certifies Commercial derivative aircraft, which I think are for aircraft like the old Army U-21 which was pretty much a Queen Air with the King Air’s turbines for example, but again it wasn’t Certified as the Queen Air But for pure Military aircraft as far as the FAA is concerned there is no Certification at all, especially any aircraft that starts with an A or F or B Like Attack, Fighter or Bomber. I can show you Military laws that require all parts from those aircraft must be demilitarized, IE destroyed, never sold. Same for the Aircraft, they are never allowed out in the Civilian world, yet there are AH-1’s and I’m certain several obsolete fixed wing Attack and Fighters flown by Civilians, often on Government contract. As a Civilian Test Pilot working for the US Army Technical Testing Center I flew AH-64’s, but still had no type of pilots license. I did actually but it wasn’t required. I think if memory serves that strange as it sounds but that I had an FAA flight physical though. The FAA is good or bad if you will about taking an existing rule that doesn’t apply and using it, or pretty much ignoring an existing rule. Even something as silly as the Aircraft Airworthiness Cert must be carried in the aircraft at all times right? But in FAR 137 it allows a copy to be carried in the aircraft as long as the original is on file in the office which is different than what 91.203 says. The FAR’s seem clear as day when you read them, but trust me the FAA itself throws all kinds of exceptions in them yet doesn’t bother to say except for part 137 in my example, you just have to know.

One year won’t kill it, especially if you keep up with it, but are you going to be able to get a hangar in Sarasota in a year? From what I hear that’s unlikely. I’d look inland, a couple of hours drive and maybe you could find a hangar, yes a couple hours drive each way Sux, but at least then your hangared and the day you get one in Sarasota you move. My neighbor has built a house, apt or something in St Pete and has been looking for a hangar for a couple of years, no luck so far, and I believe he knows quite a few people as he used to own a few car dealerships there. Just did a quick internet search for hangar rental Sarasota Fl, https://flysrq.com/sites/default/files/2024-10/web thangar wait list 42' REV OCT 25 2024.pdf Neat thing is you can check the wait list for each size hangar, for the 42’ wide hangar which I think we would want the highest guy on the list was put on the list in 2021 if I read the list correctly? After him there are I think 122 people on the list that would cycle through before you could get one? I think there are 123 hangars so if yiu get on the list now your #123? Of course that’s just one place, I have no idea how many places there are. For those that want to live in Fl, consider an Air Park. No they aren’t usually on the beach, but where I live in Central Fl the beaches are 15 to 30 min flight away, and my airplane is 50 ft away from the house so I don’t have to drive anywhere to fly, fuel is delivered to our in hangar tanks monthly, and from what I hear others pay for tiny T hangars it’s a LOT cheaper too. What I hear others pay for hangar rent covers half my house and hangar payment

Many things influence EGT, mixture is one of course. It’s counterintuitive but lower compression runs a higher EGT, I think high compression is more efficient and it gets that way by harnessing more of the power from burning fuel and as these are heat engines it drops EGT. that’s my theory I don’t know if it’s correct or not. But I can’t imagine a cylinder moving at most a few thousands of an inch would have any effect.

We aren’t supposed to at mine, it’s prohibited in the covenants as in no aircraft are allowed to be based here that’s non resident. Having said that I know it’s done as our neighborhood is 20 years or so old there are a few Widows living here, who is going to tell them that their hangar has to remain empty and they can’t rent it out to help make ends meet? Would you? But unless you know the people that live here I’d say you have zero chances of finding out if you could or not. From my experience living in Fl I think an aircraft tied down near the coast has less than a 10 year life expectancy, well less actually. Some aircraft types do much better than others, unfortunately I don’t think Mooney’s do well. My advice that people don’t like is if your going to live on the coast of Fl, sell the airplane, it’s a great place to own a boat, or buy a Cirrus, they are still making those. I’ve had people tell me rather irritated that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that hangar rent was so high that it’s cheaper to just scrap an airplane and buy another every so many years, that is upsetting to me that some are knowingly depleting a limited resource, but it is what it is.

I hope that’s true but suspect it’s not. I just hope actuators aren’t going to be 10K or whatever now.

If springs are $3K, one wonders what overhauled actuators will cost now?

I believe only the aircraft models that were originally offered with manual gear can have manual gear installed because it’s in the TCDS, but for example a J model isn’t one of those. There really shouldn’t be any reverse Engineering, it should pretty much be wind me some springs just like this, and oh by the way don’t bend the tab on one that’s already heat treated, that would get you an OPP one. I’d be surprised if this spring is only used in an Eaton actuator, thats very uncommon, the trick would be of course to find it, and I have no idea how to do that.

This, I did the same for years, why would you want to blast them? But then I’m not blasting my massives either. It’s unlikely I’ll buy fine wires again, I can’t justify the price difference.

A quart in ten hours is nothing, I would in fact be concerned if it didn’t burn at least that. Most airplanes burn more than that, a great many quite a bit more.