kortopates

Keep in mind that the EDM will never fail to report a peak - but that doesn't mean its accurate. Mixture has to manipulated slowly to get accurate data. Although I highly recommend using the engine monitor's LF method to learn all about peak, your engines mixture distribution as in your leanest and richest and how your TIT peaks relative to your leanest and richest cylinder peaks. You should understand all this for your engine before moving onto advanced methods of leaning a turbo charged engine. But doing it slowly at higher power settings is not good for the engine and we really have it easy with a TC engine. We can simply add AIR! For TC aircraft, rather than the big pull which is my favorite for NA engines, instead I prefer the the big push for TC. 1) At the top of my full power climb, I'll reduce MAP to get a reasonable ROP power setting leaned close to the GPH I need for my target % power setting LOP. So for example we'll use 68.5% power with 10.5 GPH. I'll reduce MAP and prop to a ROP setting at my target 10.5 GPH for 68.5% LOP. 2) Next, I'll just add air via MAP. As I do add MAP it will change my mixture (even much more so on the 231) so I'll adjust mixture to maintain my target as I add more add more. We'll see TIT and EGTs go up to peak and then back down onto the lean side. With a bit of practice I'll have a target MAP value that will be close very quickly, then I'll fine tune for an expected TIT I know should be real close. With enough practice I am done. 3) But Verify. Occasionally I'll want to verify; not always but especially if I am trying a different power setting. But to verify with the least risk to the engine, i'll enrich watching for what I already know is my richest cylinder to peak and then without hanging out here, add mixture back in till my richest EGT is at the target # degrees LOP based on my percent power and the Gami chart I referenced from their AFMS. So per that chart, I need to be 15F LOP when 65-69% power, so I'll set my richest EGT accordingly. Then verify this is my target TIT which I monitor in flight for any changes (its common for it to creep a bit in flight and to keep it always at least 15F LOP, I'll make it a bit leaner (an extra 10F) to give me some buffer). The more recent practice and knowledge I have of my engine numbers the quicker I can set up and have less need to verify regularly. Its by no means the only or best way but I find it very easy and when in doubt verify.

You're not using a EI TIT probe connected to your JPI analyser are you? If so, these are not compatible. I think they both use K type thermocouples but EI used ungrounded probes and JPI uses grounded probes making them incompatible. Hopefully you are referring to a separate EI indicator for the EI TIT probe. Anthony explained why TIT is hotter than your EGTs (except at idle power). Its also very common with these engines to see TIT a full 100F higher than your warmest EGT. But it varies and can only be as little as 20F higher at lower LOP power settings but it seems higher power settings result in the biggest difference.

Ah, but it was your superior airmanship and situational awareness (for lack of better description) that enabled you to see had a big problem BEFORE your engine gave up on you so that you were able to get it back on the ground before you totally lost engine power. Way to many of these failures are partially the fault of us pilots for missing the signs that we have a true emergency and taking necessary action before its too late. Of course we're not always fortunate enough to get warnings, but often we are. Good job!

Yes I do, (third set probably). Although possible, I'd expect the lower EGTs to be more from slightly advanced timing, don't have any actual data though. Or perhaps you had some elevated EGTs from high resistance plugs in need of replacement.

True, I should have mentioned there have been several reported issues of the tempest fine wire electrodes breaking off. Tempest hasn't been exactly forthcoming about the issue and whether its been resolved or still an issue. I've heard they claimed the problem was due to a vendor and they have since moved that production operation in house; and I recall that was last summer. But we're still seeing failures in the field very recently and can't be sure if the problem is till unresolved or its plugs that were produced before they went in house - since Tempest isn't owning the issue. We saw significant problems in Champion plugs to with their resistor design causing excessive internal resistance prematurely. They too didn't own up to the issue but then with no announcement changed their design to be similar to the integrated design used by Tempest. Since then the Champions have been reliable good product. Yet more expensive. Its probably safer to go with the Champion fine wires for now till we know for sure the issue has been resolved.

If you start with a 60-65% ROP power setting, or just under, you should be fine since as you start leaning your power will drop. The reason for the running your target MAP at the same altitude that it equals ambient atmospheric pressure it to essentially eliminate any induction leak(s) from ruining your gami spread data. Once we have good baseline data its not so critical, but induction leaks are so common with our new clients that doing it this way really helps us get better data consistently. We have other ways to look at/for induction leaks. With the 231 without a automatic controller, to get good data, its critical to use your AP and preferably with 2 people on board, so you can use both hands to manipulate the controls. You want to continuously change mixture as slowly as you can, and in both directions. But while doing so, you'll also see MAP changing and you'll need to make small adjustments to keep MAP as constant as possible as you go from the rich side to the lean side and vice versa. This will take some practice and frankly this is the hardest engine to collect good data because of the lack of an automatic controller to keep MAP stable for you. But if you do nothing, you'll see your MAP change over a couple inches and that really interferes with getting good data. The whole point of the test is to see only mixture change since we're measuring differences in cylinders peaking in GPH.

@Mikosch at 13 GPH LOP you are nearly at 85% power. A couple thoughts, its really hard to believe your TIT is that low, I wonder if your TIT probe is indicating properly. (The TIT and EGT probes do eventually fail from tip erosion.) Secondly the manufacture, Continental, certifies and test their engines to a maximum% cruise power. Max cruise power isn't quite what you think but refers to that maximum power where the engine can be leaned - ROP or LOP. Your engines max cruise power is 78.6%, above this Continental is advising to keep it full rich to ensure sufficient detonation margin. Running it LOP reduces ICP which certainly helps with the detonation margin but your somewhat in untested waters. I can tell you that when I operate the engine above 70% power LOP I can no longer keep TIT from exceeding my max TIT limit of 1580-1600F. Therefore i don't operate above that LOP. Consequently I would be curious to see your data to get a better idea of what's going on since your numbers are well out of the ordinary. Create a free account on SavvyAnalysis.com where we can see your data (I looked and don't see any data there yet). Suggest also flying the SavvyTest profile under help.

Tempest fine wires. They last over 2x as long and much more resilient than massive plugs. Especially helpful if you fly high and/or LOP.

Hadn't even thought of that at the time - good to know! Thanks Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nothing at all to do with Encores or any of the TSIO-360's! Purely pilot issue. We see this all the time. Mooney's are vulnerable since pilots buy Mooney's to fly fast. But new Turbo pilots with only NA engine experience often learn the hard way how not to lean their engines. Take a pilot that want to fly fast using the max cruise power setting from their POH and if they also follow the marketing department inspired POH performance tables that suggest operating at peak TIT at high power settings you have a recipe for very short cylinder life. Once there are a couple of cylinders involved, many shops will talk the owner into a complete new top even though unnecessary. There is actually no better example of this than your Bravo because the POH actually promotes cruise power settings as high as 93% power (34" 2400 rpm = 250 HP) with recommendation to run at 1650F TIT or peak TIT! That might give you great performance but its a recipe for an OH every 500 hrs too. But make sure there wasn't also a new or prop overhaul also done at the same time since if so, good chance it was actually a prop strike triggered OH Purely for entertainment value, I'll add its possible to do it in 90 seconds. From the Stupid Pilot tricks department, one such example is a pilot that took off with the cowl plugs still in place. Recently checked out so was too busy flying the plane to notice CHTs going over 500F. Luckily it was a short 20 min flight and the plane was on the ground before cylinders actually melted off - but all were toast.

That makes sense then why you don't need electric cowl flaps. I do suspect the new design that Skip has will give you more cooling with less drag - but I have no direct data. But the NA birds are a world apart from the turbo's when it comes to cooling requirements and thus cowl flap requirements. The NA engines are generating less power as altitude increases and therefore less heat above some point (8-12K, depending on how operated) while turbo's are generating the same power all the way up to the flight levels but with the thinning atmosphere our cooling air demands are increasing with altitude as @gsxrpilot commented above.

Dave (sorry I used Dan earlier) the max TIT you read and am using was in the context of LOP ops not ROP as you are operating above. The discussion wasn't meant to be focused on a max TIT, but on needing to stay out of the Red Box; especially as you are learning to lean and experimenting. The size of the red box grows with the % power and is much larger on the ROP side than the LOP. On the ROP side where you are above, we need to be much richer to be out of it. Using Gami's recommended mixture settings for power settings above 65% to 75% we want to be 100 to 150F ROP from your leanest cylinder and on the LOP side we need only be 15 to 50F LOP on the richest cylinder. Operating at 29" 2400 rpm, which equates to 81% power per Lycoming Operators Guide, you want to be even a bit more richer and you'd find your TIT will be about 100F lower to be as rich as suggested to do so. Its only on the LOP side, where we are much closer to peak, that we get anywhere near the limits of TIT. At Savvy we recommend a max of 1600F, I personally use 1580F knowing my TIT will creep up periodically closer to 1600F, so 1580 gives me buffer. Whom ever suggested 1600 to a max of 1625F is just operating more aggressively than I do and what we recommend at Savvy but of course your engine won't self destruct at 1601F TIT any more than it will at 1626F - its all about how conservatively or aggressive you want to run it. For a more thorough explanation on the Red Box there is a ton of literature by Mike Busch and Deakin on Avweb including a great series. But this article by Mike B https://www.savvyaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/articles_eaa/EAA_2012-12_red-box-red-fin.pdf explains the concept really well and really makes the point that using your lean Find mode is not the right way to lean your engine at high power settings like that because you need to go through peak slowly to find it. But you definitely want to learn all about peak and using your engine monitor is very instructive - just don't do it above 65% power since its not good for the engine. Keep in mind when Mike B says he doesn't necessarily keep track of always care how LOP or ROP his EGTs are its because his cruise is typically no higher than 65% power. He really babies his engines to go 2-3x past TBO. But again his point there is not to rely on using your monitor to slowly find peak and set mixture. Additionally, you'll want to learn the specifics of your engine with respect to mixture distribution and probably the health of your ignition system. To do this, I recommend our Savvy Test profile, at http://content.savvyanalysis.com/static/pdf/SavvyAnalysisFlightTestProfiles.pdf By going through that, you'll not only learn you gami spread but also your leanest and richest cylinders and ranking in between. You want to know your leanest for setting up or verifying ROP mixtures and your richest for LOP ops since you really don't want to have to always use your engine monitor Lean find and go through peak slowly. There is a great red box simulator app on the APS site that shows how it size grows with power here https://www.advancedpilot.com/redbox.html Lastly here is the mixture guidance from GAMI/APS on where to place your mixture for both LOP and ROP that was referenced before: https://gami.com/gamijectors/AFMS - GAMIjectors Rev IR.pdf It doesn't matter whether you have gami's installed or not, its great conservative guidance. BTW, hope you're not relying on the % power displayed on your EDM since its indicating 77% power with a power setting rated at ~81% per Lycoming. If that's of value to you, see the calibration procedure in the EDM Pilot Guide. Again, since my first post wasn't understood, let me summarize: None of this discussion is about how to set mixture or how EDM LF works etc. Its to say that i) using your EDM to set mixture at high power settings is not good for your engine and that ii)at 80% power ROP you want to be much richer because of the red box. But to learn all about these concepts dealing with the Red box, LOP & ROP, using your Engine monitor is excellent way to do it! Just do it at lower safer power settings as you learn - such as the 65% max recommended in our Savvy Test profile. Move up to higher power settings after you learn more about your engine specifics and advanced leaning techniques which get you there faster. Going slowly through peak at what most of us consider the max recommended cruise power setting is not good for the long term health of your engine. Rather than shoot video's, open a free account on SavvyAnalysis.com, upload your data there and you can share with us on MS by clicking on the share options bottom right (one flight at a time or even all flights).

Dan Strongly suggest you learn all about leaning at greatly reduced power settings where there is no red box to stay out. You're using ~80% power with 29" 2400 rpm. That TIT of over 1617F is way too high if you want your exhaust components to last. You should be about 100F lower for a ROP power and under 1600F for a LOP power setting. But you want to start at less than 65% power so that you can't hurt the engine no matter where you leave the mixture and allow you to get to know how to use your EDM 900 to lean slowly as you go through peak. You still have a lot to learn and want to do it in safe sandbox without concern for damaging your engine as you do so. That means a lower power setting. AT least use one of the lower 2 power settings out of your POH, but I'd recommend starting with the lowest of 24" 2200 rpm which 57% power. When you have the basic dialed in, then go up to 27" 2200 rpm which is 67% and learn how to set mixture relatively quickly without spending much time at peak. Power is still relatively low enough that the red box is very small. But wouldn't recommend going any higher till you fully understand the process and feel real comfortable. See Gami's AFMS for great recommendations on how far LOP and ROP you need to be based on % Power - its good safe conservative advice and FAA approved as well. After you learn the basic at lower power settings, then you'll know enough to graduate to doing the big pull and using TIT as a proxy for leaning. But frankly you'll find the big pull doesn't work out so well in the Bravo and most Bravo's will do at most about 65-70% power LOP smoothly (if LOP is even of interest to you). Take your time and really learning with baby steps and you'll do great!

Your comments raised my curiosity as to why. Are you able to operate with them closed on cruise with that design? I don't doubt that may be over designed in functionality on a J, afterall the big IO-550s in the R/S don't even have cowl flaps. Just the turbos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No doubt since TCM has essentially pulled support on this engine. But they have dropped a vast many Kits simply because the demand is not there on older engines, the individual part numbers are generally always available. TCM will supply the part no list on any kit they no longer sell (in my experience). That's not to say there may well be some parts unique to the GB that may be hard to source - I don't have any direct experience with the GB. But with ability to fall back to older part numbers and PMA'd Superior parts I would assume a field major overhaul is still very possible. But I would expect an engine shop would insist on doing the LB conversion just as TCM would. But in my opinion the only "overhaul" that counts is a "Major Overhaul" since this is the only overhaul recognized by the FAA legally. Anything else is a repair. It totally depends on the specific circumstances and context of when its done relative to other work and how the parts are sourced. Suffice to say since it requires some pretty significant updates including a new induction system that its probably only economical when done by a large engine rebuilder that won't have to source all new parts. We've seen a few quotes on the complete overhaul done that way here in MS and they weren't that bad at all. One in the last year I recall. So as far as "above a normal overhaul price" probably just a few K but no one to my knowledge posted a delta quote since the shops doing it won't quote a MOH without the conversion. (how's that for a wishy washy answer!)

They're extremely valuable in the Turbo K , providing infinite adjustment on how much airflow without the full open penalty drag of the manual system. But they are also re-engineered the cowl flaps from a pair of oval shaped flaps to one much larger center flap which my guess is provides more cooling with smaller openings. So I wonder how much benefit you may be getting just from the newer design even though you may have little need to adjust them. Regardless though, the updated flaps provide very little speed penalty upto about the 1/3 open. But up in the flight levels conditions can need even more than that. So personally on an aircraft flown from down low to well into the flight levels they're a huge improvement over the manual system.

Personally I moved on just seeing the GB and clever marketing by 130 SMOH LOWER 220 SMOH TOP TSIO360GB1 Recognize the misuse of SMOH - there is no such thing as SMOH Lower or top. Neither reset the clock for the engines TSMOH. It would be more correct and honest to say Lower was IRAN'd 130 hrs ago and whatever cylinder work was done 220 hrs ago - but engine time since last overhaul hasn't changed by either of these repairs separately or together. A major overhaul has a legal definition. The real point though is that the owner didn't want to spend the $ for proper OH and you probably have no idea how thorough the repairs where done but someone is trying to tell you the work is equivalent to a Major overhaul - but its not!

Mooney is shipping parts they have on the shelf, but anything they have to make is questionable as to when. I don't think you can put a timeline on it when they don't have staff presently available to make anything yet. Who's to say you can't find find a serviceable link in good condition till you check with salvage yards? IF you can find one, it could well last longer than your ownership years. There are some salvage Ovations out there and its likely that the part is in common with any longbody.

The head guy at Command Aviation is awesome. He knows engines really well, better than most at diagnosing issues. On the Mooney side he used to be the chief inspector at a former MSC that closed some years ago - he certainly knows Mooneys. But his name escapes me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Understand, but this has always been the case with GP. I personally wouldn't have a need for my mini-ipad if it wasn't for flying. My wife, also a pilot has been using an older mini that won't support IOS 13, so now we're looking at buying a new mini for her just to fly with running GP with the new version to match mine. I consider it just another cost of flying like charts. The new version has a lot of updates, some are pretty cool. I like those that make my pre-flight planning more accurate. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not sure about the earlier Vintage models, they did originally use a different pizo device than those used today such as what you see in your parts manual. But we had one owner here speak about a Mooney Service bulletin to enable going to the newer style of Sonalert. At some point, Mooney went to the Sonalert SC628 (continuous) for the stall and Sonalert SC628P (pulsating) gear which is now replaced by the SC628PR. King Autopilots use a third Sonalert, also continuous. Sonalerts are a standard part available for $30-$40 from many of the electronics houses such as Newark, Digikey, Allied etc. Mooney or LASAR should be able to verify the legality of going with the new version. But I think the service kit included some hardware to mount the newer Sonalert since its got a different footprint.

Good point, the gear down should be sounding whenever pulling the power back for landing if the gear is still up. And for a very long time on a power off landing - if the gear is still up! Although the tone is the same as the stall horn, they're very different since gear horn is a pulsating tone (beep, beep, beep,...) while the stall horn is a continuous tone. But I've seen a number of gear horns replaced with the wrong unit intended for the gear horn.

That's purely a vintage model limitation. My K model VloExtend is 140 kts but my Vle is 165 (max gear extended speed). But in truth I slow to 120 kts before extending simply to be easy on my gear (since I do all the work on it) don't go higher than 120 kts with the gear extended which is plenty fast enough in the SOCAL airspace I operate in.

@Cassity Be happy to help if you're interested in coming down to San Diego, but I am about 90 min away from you. Interesting setup on the avionics. I'd wager the G500/600 was installed in the days for the GAD-43E was available that provides VNAV features. Without the VNAV capability available today can imagine why the prior owner kept his KAS-297B and all the other expensive to maintain legacy equipment. But now I'd go for the GAD-43E to provide fully integrated AP functionality with your G500/600 and pull the KI-256, HSI, KAS-297B and encoding altimeter and put in more reliable and relatively inexpensive glass backup instrument(s) that won't cost you an arm and leg to repair. Done right you can at least pull the standby vacuum pump, if not both, and get some useful load back as well. But maybe you'd prefer to address the no-longer supported GPS before it gives you any trouble. You can also search around Mooneyspace for good sources for a new O2 cylinder if that's why its inop. Sorry about the unsolicited comments about how to spend your money! LOl's. Enjoy your new Rocket!

I finally looked up where the planes was out of curiosity. If the PIREP location is accurate, the plane was on the 100 degree radial 10 miles out of KMTO. ILS for RWY 29 was right to his south, but the minimum altitude to cross the FAF was at 2400' at 4.8 miles from the field - ~5 miles further south west. There is also Casey 1H8 with a GPS approach to RWY 22 the plane could have been headed for. The published MSA for MTO there is 2500', for Casey its 2600' and the OROCA there is 3200' . There are also some lighted obstacles in the planes vicinity at 1309' and 1440' . I doubt the pilot was that low by choice.