larryb

My mid time IO 360 used a quart every 4 to 5 hours during the 5 years I owned it. More during IFR training and less during my normal cross country usage.

I print in PETG for almost everything. I’ll print in ABS if I really need the higher temperature rating. I did the wingtip light project in ABS because of the heat. ABS requires a heated enclosure to avoid warpage.

Well it has the carbon fiber cowl to offset the heavier interior. So light!

I had an ‘84 J and I now have a ‘97 Encore. The newer model has a much nicer interior. No more Royalite. Nice fabric covered fiberglass. Better soundproofing as well.

After I purchased my Encore 5 years ago I spent a year chasing O2 leaks. I found several. The first leak was at the fill port. Previous mechanic had over-tightened the nut totally distorting the insides. Swagelok sells a go/no-go gauge so you can determine proper tightening. It's cheap. I recommend it. I found this leak with soap spray. Second was an old o-ring on the high pressure line connection to the regulator. This connection may be an issue for the OP. It wasn't the same as the standard Swagelok fittings for the rest of the system. There is an o-ring and a collar soldered to the copper line. Third was the regulator itself. It was leaking internally, even when the lever was fully closed. It had to be overhauled. C&L Aero, 530-223-0667, did my regulator overhaul and was very knowledgeable. They should know about the makeup of the high pressure connection to the regulator.

The fittings are made by Swagelok and are available from directly on their website.

I add one of these every few fillups. It results in 0.2% for my 75 gallons. I have also experienced unexplained momentary stumbles but not while using the IPA. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07J62C1K5/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Yes. They allow you to fly an approach at 150 kt and slow to gear speed and also stay on the GS. That may not matter everywhere but it does matter when you have to sequence with the jets at a big airport.

This thread is exactly what I needed! I have a couple cowl holes that barely hold the current camlocs and was wondering what to do about it.

Yes, expensive. But no more than daycare for a couple kids, private school for 1 or 2, and less than a year of college pretty much anywhere these days. I’m pretty sure that if anybody calculated their actual yearly cost for their Ford F250 they would be horrified.

If a piston single is too expensive then just buy a piston twin.

Another thing to remember is that over time the purchase price is a small part of the overall ownership cost. It's not uncommon to spend 20% to 30% of that purchase price every year to fly and maintain the airplane.

To prevent corrosion, what you really want to do is keep the surface of the metal dry. If the water molecules are held in suspension in the air, they are not on the metal and therefore not available to cause corrosion. If the air is warm, and the metal is similarly warm, and the RH is low, then that water vapor will not condense on the surface of the metal.

I think the key finding here can be seen in the RH between 12 AM Tuesday and 6 AM Wednesday. It drops from 80% to 35% with the temperature being a constant 90 degrees F the whole time. So I'd say there is 56% less water molecules per cubic foot at the end of the test period.

I've posted some of these graphs before, but nothing recently. This one is interesting. Returning from my last trip I forgot to plug in my engine heater and humidity measuring system. The system is designed to keep the engine at an even 90 degrees F and measure engine and ambient temperature and humidity. After a couple weeks of sitting I check it, find it offline, and return to the airport to plug it in. So the engine was sitting with it's cowl blanket on, the oil filler open, and around 55 degrees average ambient temperature. The humidity measured inside the engine is the yellow line on the graph. What the graph shows is that when I started up the system the humidity inside the engine was 95%. After warming it dropped to 85%. But after 36 hours of heat, humidity gradually declined to 35%. Ambient humidity is high because it's been raining here the last couple days. I was shocked to find that after 2 weeks of no heat, with the oil cap open, the humidity was so high. But constant application of mild heat does drive the humidity down to reasonable levels. Larry

My shop suggested I order, and pay for, a spring at my 2021 annual so it would be ready a year later in 2022 when I needed it. It took 10 months but it did eventually arrive. How much would it be, per spring, to order 100, or 1000, vs 12? Usually the cost is in the manufacturing setup and not the material. I’d bet a long term order of 1000 springs would return a lot better than the stock market these days for a savvy investor.

I wrap mine with duct tape. It works well to prevent slipping.

I think the 355 + 255 is fine for IFR. You have 1 gps, 1 nav, and 2 comms. In my 10 years of IFR I have not needed more than this. You do not need a second nav for an ILS because the GPS unit can substitute for the missing second VOR to identify any intersections. Does the 255 also feed the G5? If not, that will be slightly awkward, you'll be looking at the G5 for GPS approaches and the GI275 for ILS approaches. I looked up the list prices, for $10K more the plane could have had twin GTN650xi's. The only benefit to dual 650's is redundancy in case of a failure. Is this panel already installed in a plane you are already considering? Or is this what you plan to install after buying the plane? Larry

Standard Molex plug, standard aviation tefzel wire, connected directly to battery, fused at the battery positive terminal.

Glare shield. The plane is in a hangar at home and on the road I have a Bruce’s cover so they are never in the sun for long.

I have a 3 display Aspen system + 2 GTN 650's. This was 5 years ago before the G500TXi was available. I think the Aspen display are a bit small, but perfectly fine. I am happy with my system. I think bigger is better though, and if I were going to start over with today's choices it'd be the G500TXi, 2 GTN650Xi, and the GFC500 AP.

A few years ago I built a device to measure and graph humidity in the engine to help me decide these questions. I found that a warmer engine has lower RH. This makes sense because the warmer the air holds more water vapor. Moisture in the air is NOT moisture sitting on the metal. In other words, that moisture is not available for corrosion. Only moisture on the metal surfaces is available for corrosion. For myself, I have a Reiff with a thermostatic control and a quilt over the cowl. I use the thermostatic control to keep the engine compartment at an even 90 degrees F all the time. I keep the oil filler cap open to allow water vapor to escape. With the quilt, the whole engine compartment maintains a pretty even temperature eliminating the concern about moisture driven out of the oil condensing on cooler engine parts. My Reiff is the version with 100 W bands on each cylinder and 100 W on the oil pan. The kit came with 2 100 W elements for the oil, but I only installed one. Larry

Low boost, mixture and throttle closed in my 1997 Encore results in around 2.5 GPH shown on my JPI. Since the JPI sensor is between the fuel pump and the fuel divider it would represent actual flow to the cylinders. My engine driven fuel pump has been overhauled in the last couple of years for a leak. Not sure if there were any other updates or not.

I never turn my sensor on off. It lasts for years. Battery is replaceable but by then it was out of calibration and I bought a new one.

And then there is the question of engine life and maintenance cost. In my Encore I cruse at 60% power, 25" 9.5GPH, LOP, and around 150 Kt TAS in the mid teens. Yes that's not as good as others report, but I do have FIKI. I can go 20kt faster at 14 gph ROP. But my fuel cost is a lot higher per mile, and I feel like my engine life would be a lot less as well. How much less? I'd really like to know.