Looking to purchase M20C...found one with Ray Jay turbonormalizer, opinions please?

[tigers2007]

[mention=17344]hmasing[/mention] the M20 A through D/G and M20E/F STCs are dead.  The company that owns those STCs closed and took the STCs with them.  I spoke with the owner and he will not sell/sign them over due to liability issues.
RAJAY owns the M20J STC and taking deposits if your interested!

What a strange bird. I wonder if he would sell the STC’s off to relinquish his liability. We have enough brainpower here to start some sort of LLC or non-profit to hold the STC’s without anyone getting sued. I can’t believe that Rajay wouldn’t buy them if he offered them up.


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[tomgo2]

There are a lot of factors. I'm not referring to product reliability. There are other aspects to it unfortunately. 

[steingar]

I've been seeing calls for an engine monitor since I got on this site.  Don't quite understand it myself.  My aircraft has had an O360 banging around under the hood since 1962 and has seemed to get along just fine without one.

[gsxrpilot]

I guess I'm the Town Crier around here when it comes to engine monitors. I wouldn't own a Mooney without one. That included both my M20C and my 252.

In no particular order, this is why an engine monitor is important to me.

• Increased performance from the engine. There are wide margins that if I stay within, I'm sure everything will be fine. An engine monitor allows me to run my engine harder, longer, and closer to the edge of its envelope because I have full visibility into it's internals at all times. Most of us fly Mooneys because of the max speed/efficiency. The engine monitor allows me to confidently use the max.
• Increased safety. Because I know at all times what my engine's doing, how it feels, how it's performing, I also have early notice of anything amiss. Regular uploading of my data to SavvyAnalysis ensures I'll get early warning of a failing valve or other chronic issues that I can get fixed/addressed long before they become a safety of flight issue.
• Increased fuel economy and range. The engine monitor allows me to confidently fly LOP. Even with my M20C, while it took effort, and wasn't always successful, I was able to run deep LOP for some unbelievable range and economy. Sometimes it would work, sometimes not, but I knew because of the engine monitor. Now in my 252 I can fly LOP easily, but with a powerful turbo running in the FlightLevels, I need to monitor the engine closely. But it allows me to get 40% fuel savings for only a 12% speed penalty.
• Increased engine hours. The conventional wisdom around here seems to be that turbos eat cylinders. It's "common" to have to do a Top at 1000 hours. My engine monitor allows me to keep from stressing my engine in any situations. And I believe there is a direct correlation between that and the nearly 1600 hours on my original cylinders.
• Reduced maintenance costs. As others have pointed out, I can diagnose issues in flight or on the ground and get my A&P to spend his time fixing rather than troubleshooting.

My engine is worth $60K, my life is worth more, a modern engine monitor can be had for $2K and the best one is only $6K. So why not?

One does have to learn to use one and to read one. You don't just stick it in the panel and assume it will teach you. But that goes for everything aviation and life in general.

Come ride in my right seat and let me explain how I use my engine monitor. Every other pilot that's done that had gone on to purchase an engine monitor.

[David_H]

15 hours ago, tomgo2 said:

@hmasing the M20 A through D/G and M20E/F STCs are dead.  The company that owns those STCs closed and took the STCs with them.  I spoke with the owner and he will not sell/sign them over due to liability issues.

RAJAY owns the M20J STC and taking deposits if your interested!

This statement is confusing.

If the owner relinquishes ownership of an STC... then doesn't he/she also relinquish liability?

[DonMuncy]

4 hours ago, steingar said:

I've been seeing calls for an engine monitor since I got on this site.  Don't quite understand it myself.  My aircraft has had an O360 banging around under the hood since 1962 and has seemed to get along just fine without one.

I understand and appreciate your thought processes. But, an anecdote. A few years ago, I took off for a 1 1/2 hour flight to Kerrville. Along the way, I noticed an engine "miss". I considered finding a place to land, but watched my engine monitor. It took about 5 minutes to diagnose what I thought was a clogged injector. With that knowledge, I made the decision to continue. Arriving at Kerrville, I taxied over to Dugosh. I  told them I had a miss and strongly suspected a clogged injector on x cylinder. They removed the injector, found bit of debris, removed it, and the problem was solved. Had I not had the engine monitor, I would have made a precautionary landing at who knows where, and paid who knows how much to find the problem, and rented a car for the rest of the trip. I figure that incident saved me the cost of the JPI installation, in A&P time, rental car and inconvenience. One may fly a long time without having that experience, but I was glad I had one.

[65eTurbo]

On 2/26/2019 at 11:49 AM, DonMuncy said:

I understand and appreciate your thought processes. But, an anecdote. A few years ago, I took off for a 1 1/2 hour flight to Kerrville. Along the way, I noticed an engine "miss". I considered finding a place to land, but watched my engine monitor. It took about 5 minutes to diagnose what I thought was a clogged injector. With that knowledge, I made the decision to continue. Arriving at Kerrville, I taxied over to Dugosh. I  told them I had a miss and strongly suspected a clogged injector on x cylinder. They removed the injector, found bit of debris, removed it, and the problem was solved. Had I not had the engine monitor, I would have made a precautionary landing at who knows where, and paid who knows how much to find the problem, and rented a car for the rest of the trip. I figure that incident saved me the cost of the JPI installation, in A&P time, rental car and inconvenience. One may fly a long time without having that experience, but I was glad I had one.

Yep. Just had a miss on left mag on runup.  Engine monitor isolated it to cylinder 2 egt drop.  Traced left mag to bottom plug.  Pulled plug, cleared obvious gunk, and ran up smooth.  Would have, at a minimum, taken a couple more anxious hours to figure out.  Also, had a miss on an IO 720 while leaning.  Immediately knew which injector had gunk in it.

Edited April 15, 2019 by 65eTurbo

[Bob_Belville]

On 2/26/2019 at 12:49 PM, DonMuncy said:

I understand and appreciate your thought processes. But, an anecdote. A few years ago, I took off for a 1 1/2 hour flight to Kerrville. Along the way, I noticed an engine "miss". I considered finding a place to land, but watched my engine monitor. It took about 5 minutes to diagnose what I thought was a clogged injector. With that knowledge, I made the decision to continue. Arriving at Kerrville, I taxied over to Dugosh. I  told them I had a miss and strongly suspected a clogged injector on x cylinder. They removed the injector, found bit of debris, removed it, and the problem was solved. Had I not had the engine monitor, I would have made a precautionary landing at who knows where, and paid who knows how much to find the problem, and rented a car for the rest of the trip. I figure that incident saved me the cost of the JPI installation, in A&P time, rental car and inconvenience. One may fly a long time without having that experience, but I was glad I had one.

 

2 hours ago, 65eTurbo said:

Yep. Just had a miss on left mag on runup.  Engine monitor isolated it to cylinder 2 egt drop.  Traced left mag to bottom plug.  Pulled plug, cleared obvious gunk, and ran up smooth.  Would have, at a minimum, taken a couple more anxious hours to figure out.  Also, had a miss on an IO 720 while leaning.  Immediately knew which injector had gunk in it.

My tale reflects the ignorant bliss flying w/o a monitor. 40 years ago in my M20E I was climbing through 5000' after a fuel stop in DE enroute to MA. I was over NJ when the engine "swallowed a valve". I had to dead stick onto an airport, luckily in gliding range. Had it happened shortly after take off or over different terrain or in IMC the outcome would have been more than just inconvenient. In those days, with a single analog CHT gauge and a single EGT we went by the book which was 25 ROP, right in the red zone. I believe a monitor could well have given me a heads up before the #3 exhaust valve burned in 2.