MichMooney201 Posted May 15, 2019 Report Posted May 15, 2019 For those of us to whom it matters, the FAA released its updated AML for the Surefly Ignition modules to include installation on J Models running the IO-360-A3B6 engines; this was approved on May 13, 2019. Additionally, they have removed Note 4 which said the units could not be run in advance timing mode. So there we have it, Surefly Ignition in advance timing modes are FAA approved on J's, as well as the rest of the Mooney fleet not running single drive dual mag set ups. Mine is in the box at the hangar and going on the motor as soon as I receive my EI CGR combo gauges within the next 2 weeks. CAN'T WAIT!!!! 1 Quote
Niko182 Posted May 15, 2019 Report Posted May 15, 2019 Im waiting on it for the io550. I want advanced timing which isnt available yet. Quote
jaylw314 Posted May 15, 2019 Report Posted May 15, 2019 37 minutes ago, MichMooney201 said: For those of us to whom it matters, the FAA released its updated AML for the Surefly Ignition modules to include installation on J Models running the IO-360-A3B6 engines; this was approved on May 13, 2019. Additionally, they have removed Note 4 which said the units could not be run in advance timing mode. So there we have it, Surefly Ignition in advance timing modes are FAA approved on J's, as well as the rest of the Mooney fleet not running single drive dual mag set ups. Mine is in the box at the hangar and going on the motor as soon as I receive my EI CGR combo gauges within the next 2 weeks. CAN'T WAIT!!!! Keep us up to speed on how it goes. I'd be especially interested in how much of an effect advanced timing has on CHT's in cruise. Quote
Yetti Posted May 17, 2019 Report Posted May 17, 2019 I can't keep up. Is this one regular mag and one electronic? what happens when the alternator dies and the battery dies? Quote
Niko182 Posted May 17, 2019 Report Posted May 17, 2019 Just now, Yetti said: I can't keep up. Is this one regular mag and one electronic? what happens when the alternator dies and the battery dies? You have a mag. Quote
takair Posted May 18, 2019 Report Posted May 18, 2019 Tried out the advance on my E today. I have 20deg base timing and CHTs tend to run really cool, often below 300. Based on a short flight up to 5500ft and power settings between 15” and 27” all I can say so far is it ran smooth. EGT seems to be running a cooler, based on just this flight, it may have been as much as 25-50 deg cooler than I would normally see. CHT seemed to be 10-20deg warmer, which works well for me. That put most cylinders into the green at about 310deg. Don’t have fuel efficiency numbers. One thing I noticed is the mag drop at 2000rpm was hard to notice....in other words...it seems like the advance was kicking in and killing the right mag made little difference. Dropping RPM to 1800 made it more notable. I generally do short flights, so I don’t think I will get the full benefit, but the price was right and it seems to work as advertised. Will have to fly more to get a better feel for it. Quote
aviatoreb Posted May 18, 2019 Report Posted May 18, 2019 Darn - seems like they skipped my plane in the aml list. there are almost all Mooneys except the m20k. then there is the tsio520nb on their engine aml. Huh? So why not my plane? Give my engine is on the list and the airframe is on the list but not the m20k I wonder if I can argue a field approval? Or do I need that? Quote
Niko182 Posted May 18, 2019 Report Posted May 18, 2019 Just now, aviatoreb said: Darn - seems like they skipped my plane in the aml list. there are almost all Mooneys except the m20k. then there is the tsio520nb on their engine aml. Huh? So why not my plane? Give my engine is on the list and the airframe is on the list but not the m20k I wonder if I can argue a field approval? Or do I need that? Its because its a turbo. I believe NA engines have priority Quote
KRviator Posted May 18, 2019 Report Posted May 18, 2019 On 5/18/2019 at 6:04 AM, Yetti said: I can't keep up. Is this one regular mag and one electronic? what happens when the alternator dies and the battery dies? You'd better hope your mechanical fuel pump doesn't roll over either... But drawing just 0.5A at 2700RPM your fuel will run out before your battery does - if you take appropriate measures to manage your remaining electrical capacity appropriately. 1 Quote
aviatoreb Posted May 19, 2019 Report Posted May 19, 2019 2 hours ago, Niko182 said: Its because its a turbo. I believe NA engines have priority I thought there were a bunch of airplanes added on May 13. I see the M20U on their AML matrix but it does not have a date next to it so maybe it is not approved? But the M20K is not even on their list at all. However the TSIO520NB is on their list approved as of October 31, 2018. I want.... Quote
Niko182 Posted May 19, 2019 Report Posted May 19, 2019 Just now, aviatoreb said: I thought there were a bunch of airplanes added on May 13. I see the M20U on their AML matrix but it does not have a date next to it so maybe it is not approved? But the M20K is not even on their list at all. However the TSIO520NB is on their list approved as of October 31, 2018. I want.... All the planes that have a revised date also have note 4 added. Note 4 allows advanced timing. They have to approve each model individually, since their oroginal approval didnt go through just covering all the advanced timing. Quote
aviatoreb Posted May 19, 2019 Report Posted May 19, 2019 8 minutes ago, Niko182 said: All the planes that have a revised date also have note 4 added. Note 4 allows advanced timing. They have to approve each model individually, since their oroginal approval didnt go through just covering all the advanced timing. ...I've got 80 hours left on my mags before the 500hr.... I am HOPING that surefly will have an electronic ignition for me by then - September/October maybe? Quote
jaylw314 Posted May 19, 2019 Report Posted May 19, 2019 3 hours ago, KRviator said: You'd better hope your mechanical fuel pump doesn't roll over either... But drawing just 0.5A at 2700RPM your fuel will run out before your battery does - if you take appropriate measures to manage your remaining electrical capacity appropriately. It's the other stuff you leave on, though, that will make it an issue a lot faster. Quote
MichMooney201 Posted May 21, 2019 Author Report Posted May 21, 2019 (edited) On 5/18/2019 at 5:42 PM, aviatoreb said: Darn - seems like they skipped my plane in the aml list. Turbo motors are not getting FAA approval for this unit, according to the SureFly website. There is a safety margin on loss of manifold pressure input when running a turbo with advance timing at high altitudes that brings engine detonation into a narrow margin of safety that cannot be guaranteed. The motor AML has some turbo models listed which seems contradictory to the website, but the airframe AML has no turbo models approved for Mooney, and other planes with turbos are limited to no advance because of note 4. Edited May 21, 2019 by MichMooney201 Corrected info Quote
aviatoreb Posted May 21, 2019 Report Posted May 21, 2019 1 hour ago, MichMooney201 said: Turbo motors are not getting FAA approval for this unit, according to the SureFly website. There is a safety margin on loss of manifold pressure input when running a turbo with advance timing at high altitudes that brings engine detonation into a narrow margin of safety that cannot be guaranteed. The motor AML has some turbo models listed which seems contradictory to the website, but the airframe AML has no turbo models approved for Mooney, and other planes with turbos are limited to no advance because of note 4. By email w surefly months ago they said they felt this restraint was temporary hopefully soon to be lifted. Note that somehow electro air got their electronic ignition certified turbos. Quote
johncuyle Posted May 21, 2019 Report Posted May 21, 2019 16 hours ago, aviatoreb said: By email w surefly months ago they said they felt this restraint was temporary hopefully soon to be lifted. Note that somehow electro air got their electronic ignition certified turbos. I emailed SureFly not long ago about my 231. They said that things were moving slow. They did not give any indication that they had abandoned the effort to get approval for turbos. I'm not sure if spark advance would ever be approved for the turbo models, but given that cruise MP is high enough to prevent advance from ever being active in a turbo, that doesn't seem like a limitation. I'd probably just have my installer leave advance disabled and omit the MP feed to the SIM. 1 Quote
carusoam Posted May 21, 2019 Report Posted May 21, 2019 Sounds like something is getting lost in the discussion... Electronic ignition has the ability to be more reliable than the current standard magneto... +1 Altering timing may be more beneficial to an NA engine that has a wide range of MP with altitude... +1 Altering timing for the narrower MP band of a TC’d plane... so many MP choices when flying a TC’d engine... Safety of the engine with respect to MP during a bad instrument event.... .... engine monitor requirement.... comparing MP to static pressure?... Something to monitor the MP to match the proper timing to... Expect the concern to be related to... Loss of mixture control... too close to peak? Loss of a hose off the turbo output... suddenly too rich... not a problem for timing... Loss of a turbo bearing... suddenly too rich... not a problem for timing... Slow fading of an MP controller... slowly fails to the rich side... not a problem for timing It seems that if the engine were running close to the TIT limit or peak EGT... engine timing can be a real challenge... Something that causes the air/fuel ratio to go towards the red box slowly, un-noticeably... would be something to have an alarm for... How would an electronic timing shift become problematic compared to one that is set at one setting like 22°BTDC...? My challenge is understanding... what can go wrong with e-ignition that isn’t already a problem with standard ignition...? IOW... What would allow e-ignition timing to errantly change, while the engine is producing a high power output...? Looks like the e-ignition guys know their challenges... but they aren’t very different for turbos or NA engines... neither likes the red box... is it just a matter of how long in the red box? 5 or 10 minutes? what did I mis-understand? PP thoughts only not a mechanic... Best regards, -a- 1 Quote
johncuyle Posted May 21, 2019 Report Posted May 21, 2019 21 minutes ago, carusoam said: Sounds like something is getting lost in the discussion... Electronic ignition has the ability to be more reliable than the current standard magneto... +1 Altering timing may be more beneficial to an NA engine that has a wide range of MP with altitude... +1 Altering timing for the narrower MP band of a TC’d plane... so many MP choices when flying a TC’d engine... Safety of the engine with respect to MP during a bad instrument event.... .... engine monitor requirement.... comparing MP to static pressure?... Something to monitor the MP to match the proper timing to... Expect the concern to be related to... Loss of mixture control... too close to peak? Loss of a hose off the turbo output... suddenly too rich... not a problem for timing... Loss of a turbo bearing... suddenly too rich... not a problem for timing... Slow fading of an MP controller... slowly fails to the rich side... not a problem for timing It seems that if the engine were running close to the TIT limit or peak EGT... engine timing can be a real challenge... Something that causes the air/fuel ratio to go towards the red box slowly, un-noticeably... would be something to have an alarm for... How would an electronic timing shift become problematic compared to one that is set at one setting like 22°BTDC...? My challenge is understanding... what can go wrong with e-ignition that isn’t already a problem with standard ignition...? IOW... What would allow e-ignition timing to errantly change, while the engine is producing a high power output...? Looks like the e-ignition guys know their challenges... but they aren’t very different for turbos or NA engines... neither likes the red box... is it just a matter of how long in the red box? 5 or 10 minutes? what did I mis-understand? PP thoughts only not a mechanic... Best regards, -a- From SureFly: Why is the advance-timing mode not available for turbocharged, turbo-normalized or supercharged engines?We have a limitation on our STC because the timing schedule starts to advance when manifold pressure is below 24.5 inHg. For you high and fast folks, you would be outside of the normal advance range for most operations. When considering failure modes, if the manifold reference line were to break at altitude the SIM would interpret that as reduced power mode and provide full advance, we can’t guarantee safety for those events. Also just a PP, but if you're in a turbo cruising along at 30" of MP up around 10'000', LOP and you lose the hose from the manifold to the ignition module, the ignition will think you've retarded throttle to ambient air pressure. That'd be what, 20" or so? Recall from APS that leaning a mixture slows the rate at which it burns, which has an effect similar to retarding the timing (since timing is fixed at a specific point before TDC) The reduction in MP would cause the SIM to advance timing despite the engine being at high cruise power, which would at best spike ICP into red box territory and launch your CHTs, but possibly even cause detonation. Your only options would be to go full rich, reduce power, and descend to thicker air to coerce the ignition module into reducing the advance. You probably don't want this to happen over the Rockies. I believe it would be entirely possible to design a turbocharged engine with an electronic ignition which advanced timing and have it be safe, but you'd probably want the MP sensor driving the ignition to be sealed directly onto the manifold to eliminate chances of leaks, you'd want at least two of them, and you'd want disagreement to cause failover to a safe fixed timing mode. 1 Quote
carusoam Posted May 21, 2019 Report Posted May 21, 2019 Challenges with sensors... one sensor system... it can fail without notice... two sensors in the system... one can fail and give notice of the failure... Three sensors in the system can ... one can fail and the system will know which one it is... and give notice... Starts getting sensor heavy. And complex... leading to more failures.... especially when remote mounted allowing for extra tube or wire failures... I don’t expect anyone to give up hope... modern technology has this challenge in mind... Or else they wouldn’t have embarked on the e-mag to begin with... how many AOA sensors would you like on you B737 AP system Mr. Carusoam? I’ll take all three... -a- Quote
N231BN Posted May 21, 2019 Report Posted May 21, 2019 You could just have a disable switch for the timing advance in case of a failure. Quote
takair Posted May 21, 2019 Report Posted May 21, 2019 9 minutes ago, N231BN said: You could just have a disable switch for the timing advance in case of a failure. The timing advance is flashed into the SIM during setup. They would need to change the design in order to do something like switching advance on or off. I do wonder however if they could add some kind of detection for rate of change. In other words, if it detects a sudden rate of change as might occur in a loss of turbo or hose, perhaps they could default to fixed timing. The problem might still be that there is no way to tell the pilot that it changed timing....although that is not much different than the basic ops today. 1 Quote
N231BN Posted May 22, 2019 Report Posted May 22, 2019 14 hours ago, takair said: The timing advance is flashed into the SIM during setup. They would need to change the design in order to do something like switching advance on or off. I do wonder however if they could add some kind of detection for rate of change. In other words, if it detects a sudden rate of change as might occur in a loss of turbo or hose, perhaps they could default to fixed timing. The problem might still be that there is no way to tell the pilot that it changed timing....although that is not much different than the basic ops today. They would still enable the feature by flashing the SIM. They could have an external input to deactivate the feature. Frankly, there isn't much reason to have advanced timing on a Turbo'd engine anyway. I'll take the hotter, longer spark though. A quick experience with electronic ignition, a customer of mine has a Carbon Cub that has dual Lightspeed Ignition. They other day I pulled it out after sitting the winter and the battery was so weak it wouldn't turn over one blade. I set the brake, got out and on the third blade it started up just fine. That was without using the emergency ignition battery. I think they are wonderful technology. Quote
Pete M Posted May 22, 2019 Report Posted May 22, 2019 Ok, so I toss out a mag, pay for all of my mag overhauls up front in surefly purchase. How much fuel do I save? How much faster am I when I climb to an altitude where it goes to max advance? In short, what are the measurable real world benifits? Suprisingly little data on thier web site. A lot of happy sounding marketing language though... Quote
johncuyle Posted May 22, 2019 Report Posted May 22, 2019 6 hours ago, Pete M said: Ok, so I toss out a mag, pay for all of my mag overhauls up front in surefly purchase. How much fuel do I save? How much faster am I when I climb to an altitude where it goes to max advance? In short, what are the measurable real world benifits? Suprisingly little data on thier web site. A lot of happy sounding marketing language though... It won't fail. There's a good reason automobiles stopped using magnetos and switched to electronic ignitions decades ago. People don't like being stranded on the side of the road because of an ignition issue. That alone is enough to sell me. Quote
ArtVandelay Posted May 22, 2019 Report Posted May 22, 2019 It won't fail. There's a good reason automobiles stopped using magnetos and switched to electronic ignitions decades ago. People don't like being stranded on the side of the road because of an ignition issue. That alone is enough to sell me. But automobiles don’t mount the electronics on the engine. The heat and vibration of the engine is not good for electronics, I wonder about dependability compared to a magneto.Tom Quote
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