garytex

At high altitude there is less insulating property in the air as it is less dense and harness, plug, and magneto problems will show themselves there first. This could be a heads up for you to do some ignition maintenance

See if the mechanic that had the jugs off can remember what the rest of the interior of the engine looked like, especially the cam.

The other thing that may be going on with the few tenths of a gallon more fuel to produce the same power may be the additional friction and pumping (air) losses at higher RPM. These can be seen on graphs of simply motoring (turning with an external power source) an engine with no combustion. It takes more energy to turn the engine faster.

It's hot enough here in Texas that the temprature correction can be significant, and the last one I had also corrected for altitude. Oh I just looked at your address, AZ, so I probably don't have anything to tell you about heat. At 8500 the other day it was showing high 160s at 20dC, 5mph of that overregister. Still, zipping along. I'm a happy boy, Gary

Yeah, it's on the list. There is no static leak which was also checked. I really want to put a true airspeed indicator in so I can compare true to ground and check on winds aloft as I climb. Additionally I was looking at my manual and evidently there is some overregistering going on as part of the ASI / Pitot / Static instalation from the factory. I am going to have to wait a while, as the fund is pretty skinny after purchase and then bring to reasonable condition repairs. I flew yesterday, and was again impressed with how fast the thing is. I just got lucky with a straight airframe, and mods that actually work, I think. Thanks again to everyone for input as I settle in mooneyworld. Gary

Had the ASI tested, it reads 7 mph high around 80 mph, and 5 mph high at 150. Well that explains some of the fast speeds. Additionaly, I have been flying final at 80 mph indicated, and the plane just splats on to the runway with absolutely no float. It also feels like it is in a very low energy state just before the flare. Like the bottom could easily fall out if provoked even the tiniest little bit. Well no kidding, at 73 mph on final, and slowing slightly in the roundout.

Since landing a Mooney is all about flaring at 75 mph, (my ASI actually registers 80. It has a 6 mph over indication) I make the focus of my approach to landing about 3 airspeeds, and what I do when I hit them: I am shooting for 120 mph with the prop and mixture tended to somewhere between the 45 and half way down the runway. As soon as I have 120, that is my cue to actually lower the gear, 105 gets two pumps of flaps, turn final, pump out the rest of the flaps, which is another cue to check the gear lever, trim for 80 IAS and adjust power to finesse the landing spot. Stabilized at 80 on short final is another cue to make the final scan and decide to land. So upon pondering, I do not know why I do not trust a checklist, but prefer a landing sequence with multiple cues for lowering the gear. Ha! I figured it out. That is how my family and friends have managed firearm safety over literally tens of thousands of rounds with no dead cows or people. With a series of inviolable checks that are cued by the stage of the process to progress to the next step. Makes perfect sense. Airplanes and firearms. Powerful tools that can bite, to be enjoyed but approached with respect, caution, and a progressive series of never skipped requirements leading to tripping the trigger or chirping the tires.

Partners can be great or a real PITA. Halving the fixed costs can be great. Best match is one partner flys for business during the week, other for fun on the weekends. Both partners need to have the outlook that they want to contribute a little extra in the things they are strong on, and thats after they have satisfied the letter and intent of the partnership regs. Get a grownup, and you have to be a grownup. And by that, I mean someone that understands how to get along. Good partnerships are just about as rare as good marriages. The AOPA sample partnership regs. are pretty good. In your shoes I would look hard at the C models, I've seen some pretty good buys lately on a bang for the buck basis and they are in your price range.

Fine looking airplane.

Byron, what a generous offer, thank you. Do I understand correctly that the 3/8 thermocouple washer probe sends to the JPI? I haven't decided that I do not want to see the lower spark plug temp. I think that I may put the factory gauge under the spark plug just to see that temp., and put a JPI probe in the bayonet location so as to have a equal sensing comparison to the other cyls. I also think that when I get the front baffles tightened up (they are terrible on the SWTA cowl), that I will see lower spark plug base temperatures, as more air will be forced through the fins, rather than just blowing around the top of the cylinders and exiting to the bottom of the cowl around the fromt baffles. My mechanic wont give me trouble about the factory guage sensor location, he is more interested in function than form. Good guy. If I decide to piggyback, I'll come begging for the thermocouple, but as of now, since I'm not sure what I am going to ultimately do, I do not want to impose on you for the shipping hassle, etc. Sincerely, Gary

Thank you all for your responses. Good information and ideas in every one. Shadrack, I did notice a slight exhaust leak on the bottom of the spring loaded fastener muffler fitting, with grey on the fasteners, and bottom of the cowl. It does not look like enough leak to heat the cyl ot spark plug..pretty far away, but needs fixed anyway. I think I may try a JPI probe in the bayonet location, just to try to see what is really going on there, and then use one of the above mentioned piggyback fittings to legal things up. Byron, that's what the guage reads, so my question is, is the guage wrong, or is something else wrong. That is what I want to find out next. Cruiser, I noticed that the JPI ring probe instructions say to put the ring probe on top, and on the cyl that gets the most cooling airflow. I am starting to wonder if the # 3 bottom plug doesn't run up there in the hot range all the time, and we fly along, blissfully unaware.

I am new and learning my M20 F, and tweaking things. It has a JPI 700 that showed #3 running warmer than the rest but not exceeding 385 in climb, 340 in high cruise. The original CHT gauge is also still in place, and wobbles along at about 375 in climb. Baffling is in good shape, SWTA cowl, with leprechaun cylinder bottom wraps. All good, nice cool running motor, no? My mechanic says " Oh, by the way I put the spark plug ring temp sender for # 3 on the bottom, where it is supposed to be". I concur. # 3 does not use a bayonet sender, the original gauge sender is positioned there so it uses an under spark plug ring. So I take off, and am making a nice climb, on pretty day with lots of vis. Texas hill country, pretty lakes, WOT, 2700, 200 ROP, going up like stink, and look over and # 3 is showing 445 on the JPI. Oops something isn't right. So I level it off, reduce MP to 21" run the mixture out to about 100 LOP, and it slowly gets down to about 385. All the rest of the cyls are around 300, EGTs even around 1350. I'm making about 120 mph in level flight. A mag check shows an intermittent miss on # 3, right mag (bottom plug). Back on the ground, alls well with the baffling, inside the bottom of the top of the offending massive electrode plug there is some brown staining in the very bottom of the area around where the spring contacts the electrode, maybe the spark is jumping across there, the combustion area is clean (recently cleaned, probably not clean from detonation). I slap in a fine wire, no more miss, but still hotter than a firecracker. I flew over to Fredericksburg Sunday morning and had to run cowl flaps open, way LOP and 21" to stay below 420. Still blew past a couple of 182's heading in for breakfast there. That was nice. All the while the original gauge with the bayonet probe in #3 wavers well below 400. I am going to pop that original sender in some boiling water and see what it says, but I bet its going to read around 210. I think, and am looking for some of you with more experience in type to comment, that both the original gauge, and the JPI are both accurately reporting. And if that is the case, then just how hot is the bottom spark plug base on # 3 getting in a hard climb? 500 maybe? No wonder the stinkers crack between the spark plug boss and the exhaust valve. The cool cylinders are all reporting from bayonet locations. I still have some places that I can close up between the front baffle plate and the cooling air inlets. There is some baffle material there, but it is obviously folding back under the bottom of the cooling air inlets, and I do not see an easy fix for that. There isn't anything to lay the forward facing baffling material up against except on top of the bottom of the cooling inlet. Maybe a little second flat can be fabricated from aluminum that will be below the cooling air inlet that the forward facing baffling material can tuck into. Comments from the other SWTA cowl guys welcome, please. Maybe I should see how the 201 cowls address this. Gary

Open the mags at 500 hrs is Holy Writ for every airplane gearhead I know.

Welcome, congratulations, and hope to see you around Central Texas some time. I base at Lakeway, but mostly just fly to Del Rio to go to work. Gary

By the numbers, (but i can't remember whose), IO-360 A1A engines have a slightly higher incidence of throwing prop tips at nick induced stress riser cracks. The theory is that 50 hp per cylinder pulses on the crank need more dampening. So it is definitly worth curing the nicks. But maybe not the way your mechanic has proposed. Maybe maropers might pm you his prop shop, it is here in Texas somewhere, if he thinks you would get the same treatment he did. Good Luck Gary

Thanks for putting that up, I'm going to go just for old lang sine. There is also a Grumman fly in at San Marcos that morning, which I am going to try to attend as I have a Cheetah to sell. Are you going to go to Birdsnest? I just bought an F that goes like the hammers of hell, I think it is trying to outrun ir's butt ugly beat up vac-u-form wood grain pannel covers. I see that you have been exorcising that demon, and would like to see your pannel and hear about your ecperience. Thanks, Gary

Idaho has a series of backcountry airports. The state has a listing thereof. Mainly they are used for access to remote hunting areas, several are near streams, and draw fishermen.

The Avaition Consumer does aircraft reviews in which they summarize the overall and fatal accident causes by make and model. RLOC, Runway loss of control usually generates the most of the stupid pilot tricks accidents. Fatals only occasionally related to engine failure as a usually 3rd or less frequent cause. Mooneys seem to have a slightly higher engine failure rate accident rate. I wonder if the difficult (and thus less opened) cowl might have something to do with that. In the 80's someone actually wrote a full size book drawn from NTSB stats. I can not remember the title. At that time VFR into IMC was the leading killer. Safest transportation by category were Trains, then Busses, then commercial air, then cars, then light AC then motorcycles, and most dangerous: Horses with 1 hospitalization per 38 hrs riding. They did caution that they thought that there were maybe some reporting errors in the horse numbers. The fatal rate for the best of the ac, which was the 172 at 1.1 fatal for 100000 hrs was safer than cars by the mile. But back to your question, engine failure shows up in the numbers as a non fatal cause, and an occasional fatal cause, and it does vary by make and model, just as we would immagine.

Jetdriven Yeah, that how the previous owner ran it. Yes, have a monitor, and I noticed the higher egt in the last hour or two of flight. You pay a lot of attention, what do you think is the correct multiplier to determine hp and % of power LOP. Or is the way to do it by fuel flow to the POH or speed to the POH ? Thanks, Gary

The baffle leprechaun has been busy, but not quick enough to help save Cyl #2 which was fouling a plug, because it was (unpleasant surprise) pumping oil, and a borescope inspection showed a polished longitudinal stripe on the cyl wall. When pulled, the stripe wouldn't catch a fingernail, but the piston skirt was all coked up and when sent to Custom Airmotive they found a crack in the head too large to weld. O how I hate exchange overhauled cylinders out of a small expensive population that are liable to get reused too many times. I now have another one of those, maybe better, a Cerminil Titan. With the new intake tube that actually has a full flange to seal, and decent baffles, maybe this jug will last a while. Repairs for this little expedition on top of curing all the pre-purchase squawks have now cost $750 / hr for my first 10 hours of ownership. Need to go fly some more to get the cost down. So I wonder what trashed the jug? The intake leak, the lack of baffling, all the takeoff and landing practice I did transitioning, or was it just a worn out old overhauled jug to start with when installed 200 hrs ago? All of the above? I also wonder if, unless we have pretty new jugs, if we aren't all flying around with more cracked heads and cases than we realize. Gary

I have been playing with this issue a little lately. The issues boil down to true airspeed vs airspeed, overhaul vs new vs junkyard and the speed markings that need to be put on for your model plane if you want new or used as opposed to overhauling yours which should have the right markings. Get a bid to O/H yours, especially if it is a true airspeed. The wait for markings from a factory is 4-6 weeks and a new true is $800 +/_. Probably quicker done at a shop. Used True for around $200 at junkyard, then you still need the markings. White has a true for a J in inventory right now, but wrong speed markings for you, I assume you have a C. Let me know how it falls out Gary

What ever became of that, Dave? Gary

I concur with 201er about sumping every time. When water comes with fuel, it can sometimes come in large amounts. I caught about 5 gallons of water after a refuel once. That cured me. Gary

My mech says that they last practically forever. Your mechanics' statements would make me wonder why such things come out of his mouth. Taint that far from Houston to Sunrise Beach.

The parts that I have seen variances in are the one piece venturi which is much harder to manufacture than the old 2 piece, and the jet. Precision used to make a multi hole jet that atomized better. I checked what I believe is their website, and could only find injected stuff. I just remembered that I have their old from 1996 phone #. Here it is for what it's worth 425-353-8181. Maybe they are still cranking, and still good. Their one piece venturi looked much better than the original and then replacement ones that I got on an OH'd Carb from Consolidated Fuels, and the combo of their jet and multi hole venturi gave me 75 rpm static on a MA4 SPA equipped O-300, which was huge on takeoff and climb on my underpowered C 170. I believe that better atomization is what evened out and lowered EGTs, as fewer unburnt drops of fuel were entering the muffler and burning there. I want to repeat the caveat that things change with these parts over time, and there is something approaching art in fabricating venturis, as I (imperfectly) understand it. Good luck Gary