Electroair installation

[Bentonck]

Howdy all!  As I had advised last year, I decided to exchange a mag and install the Electroair kit in my Mooney Acclaim as a safety precuation.  I turned over the key to my Mooney in December to my shop and they had ordered the kit and had it in.  They called after pulling the cowl and were working on a 100 hr when they found a crack in the exhaust manifold and also a low compression on cylinder 5.....so we pulled a cylinder and send the exhaust manifold out for replacement.  They installed the Electroair and got the cyldiner and manifold back and in February turned my plane back over to me.  Two months was a long time to be planeless but I looked forward to a lot of trouble free hour ahead...

On the flight home, the cylinder head temps were through the roof.  I had to leave it full rich to keep the cyldiners under 400 degrees, and I had always flown the plane LOP with CHTs around 320-340 in cruise...they OCCASIONALLY got up to 380 in the climb but that was as high as I ever saw them.  Now full rich at 200kts I had two of the cylinders above 400 and when I TOUCHED the mixture the engine started stuttering.  

To be clear, I had done a test flight, 45 mins full rich down low and everythign seemed fine.  When I got to 12k and touch the mixture the fun started.  It was a 45 min flight home and by the time I got to 12k I was almost halfway home and decided to get on back and have the plane looked at on home field.  I called my shop and told them of the issues and they had me take it to another shop on my home field.  They thought I had a bad fuel injector because one cyldiner was much hotter than the rest.  We ordered a new fuel injector (2 weeks to get it).... put in the fuel injector and still saw high cht's.  They played with timing on electroair and monday called me for another test.  We did a 1 hour test flight.  Now all CHTsw ere back to normal, but EGT's were off the chart.  TIT was ok, mixture I could pull and engine was smooth, but EGT's were 1600 or above at cruise settings and while leaning would go off scale (top at 1700)....which created quite the pucker factor. 

Mechanic was in plane and said to head back and he would recheck calibration on EGTs....all that checked out and they are checking with electroair to see if they can give them any more ideas....it sucks to have taken my plane in without any squawks though, 3 months back and I am still waiting for a solution....I have the magneto they pulled and if we can't find a solution this week I'm going back to magnetos but has anyone ever heard of this issue??

[ArtVandelay]

I’d call the company, seems to me the timing is off for whatever reason.

[Ragsf15e]

Did they switch to the electroair approved spark plugs and connect those to the electoair?

[Tim Jodice]

Maybe the electro air system is setup for a naturally aspirated engine and is advancing timing at altitude. it would make sense that the MAP sensor is seeing outside pressure and advancing the timing. 

[Bentonck]

I thought about the advanced timing as well and had them check that.  We did put in the wider gapped plugs and the wires they recommended....

We are in contact with electroair and awaiting their response now, will keep ya'll up to date as I want this thing to work more than anyone.  I also thought it was advancing the timing and the questionairre they sent asked about the timing and how they were finding TDC but I'm letting the a&p handle that....

Will update when I have more

[carusoam]

Let’s invite @M20Doc to visit this thread... (IO550 with Electroaire)
 

Hot CHTs are typical of the strong spark initiating the flame as if the timing was another degree BTDC....

The one crazy cylinder/EGT, is typical of a blocked fuel injector... they often get cleaned out... catch what ever the blockage is to determine if something is falling apart upstream...

When they adjusted the timing... and brought the CHTs down... less fuel was burned in the cylinder.... so the burning continued past the exhaust valve, driving the EGTs up...  probably saw TIT respond similarly...

Got any engine data you can share?

Sounds like your mechanic needs a bit more support from Electroaire...

Every degree of timing is important...

Expect the CHTs to be a small amount higher than using the old mag... but not that much... and EGTs should go down as the result...

Of course... CHT issues may be caused from other things like the cowling seals... anything funny going on with the rubber seals? Are they new and rigid, or old and floppy? Or not put back properly?

PP thoughts only, not a mechanic...

Best regards,

-a-

[David Lloyd]

Electroair's timing advance is dependent on info sent from their MAP sensor.  If it was good at low altitude and too advanced at high on a turbo engine, suspect where it's plumbed, the plumbing, the senor or the sensor wiring.  I'm sure you will have it sorted out soon.  Let us know.

[Bentonck]

They took pictures of the setup and sent it to the guys over at electro yesterday and I understand we are awaiting a return.  I hope to have an answer on Monday as I'm getting itchy with the plane up for so long.  I'll keep everyone appraised.... I hope it's something like the sensor but I had hoped if it were that simple they'd have sorted it already.  I'll wait to see what the guys say and we'll go from there.

 

It's definately the electroair, though...there was a plugged injector on the #5 cylinder that was causing the hot cylinder there.  We replaced the injector and that's all good now.  I wish I could share the engine date but I have the earlier non-WAAS software on my G1000 that doesn't do the data logging.  I can post some pics of the engine monitor in flight but that's about the best I can do.

 

Tks

[Ragsf15e]

Did you ever just turn off the electroair in flight and fly around on the old mag to see that she basically (almost) returned to normal?

[carusoam]

Benton,

While we are awaiting your next steps...

We can discuss this detail....

Do you run a Gami spread test...

This is a great way to see how well your fuel injection system is behaving.   It also is a method to quantify how bad a fuel injector is plugged...

It is a measure of total FF at the point where EGT peaks for each cylinder...

Some IO550s have a very tight spread (close to 0.1gph)... Mostly because the engine is very well balanced by design... Some people have worked closely with GAMI to get their fuel injectors balanced...

Best regards,

-a-

[Bentonck]

Sorry guys, I got nervous and the Eletroair guys never got back to me, nor the shop.  I pulled it for now and put the mag back in so I can use the plane.  My airplane in particular is used to sport me around to visit customers and in the absence of support or a reasonable path I just decided to go back to the mag.  The installation was to be done predicated on a safety aspect and it went the wrong way.  

 

I will do a GAMI spread with the mags back in and come back but the plane is flying great again so I went with my grandfather's old adage that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

 

Thanks.

[Will.iam]

Wow i was thinking about elctroair but if this is the typical and not abnormal way they support their product no thank you. Just out of curiosity why did you go electoair and not surefly?

[carusoam]

I like Benton’s Grandfather’s advice... 

I’m not the one to be on the bleeding edge...

Lets see if @StevenL757 is familiar with the Electroair system...

Best regards,

-a-

[StevenL757]

Very late to the party here...but unfortunately I can't offer anything intelligent (or even unintelligent) on the ElectroAir.

[dfurst]

This is all interesting.  I am having the exact opposite experience.  Working with Darrell from Smooth Power LLC, local? regional? Electroair distributor has been great.  During the research process he answered all my emails quickly and in deep detail.  Keep in mind up to this point he didn't know if I was going to spend any money or not.

Once I decided to go ahead we had a few phone calls to answer some more questions I had.  He was great on the phone.

Waiting for shop to install next month so I guess things could still go south, but, so far, my experience has been great. I don't foresee any major problems but I have confidence that my emails and calls will be answered promptly. Darrell has given his contact info to the shop and told them to call him any time if they have any questions.

I will report back once it is done. Hopefully with good news. 

[Bentonck]

I wish you the best of luck!  I finally got a reply but I had already uninstalled it and put it back in the box.  I flew the plane all over Brazil last week on two mags and as they have for the last 100 years (in general, not for me!), the mags got me out and back.  To answer 1980Mooney, I had a shop pull it out and reinstall the mag, not the same shop that handled the install ... the reason being the install shop is a an hour and a half flight from home base and I had flown it home with what was probably advanced timing with the EGTs off the scale, zero ability to lean without engine roughage, and my heart in my hand.  The shop next door to my hangar talked to the shop that did the install, and pulled the Eletroair and put it in a box for me, reinstalling the previously removed mag.  

Will.iam (nice name BTW) ... I didn't go with Surefly because the STC is not approved by ANAC in Brazil to date, ElectroAirs was (don't know why) ... when I first started this little project I had read up on Surefly and understood that it could not be used on turbocharted engines, I just perused again their site and see that now it can be installed, as long as the ignition timing is set to off....

...everywhere I go in Brazil everyone asks about the plane, not many Mooney's here.  I was coming into the VFR corredor coming back Thursday and there was a Cirrus a mile in front of me appraching from my 1 o'clock to enter into the same corredor, I had to really repress the desire to floor it and race him in...hehehe

 

[Bentonck]

Oh...and to dfurst, I purchased the kit and STC through an importer in Brazil the represents Eletroair, and after installation I sent an e-mail to Ron and Mike who own it.  My original e-mail was sent on the 24th of March and they replied on the 26th of April, about two week's after I decided to pull it back out.  

[Will.iam]

On 5/1/2021 at 5:39 AM, Bentonck said:

I wish you the best of luck!  I finally got a reply but I had already uninstalled it and put it back in the box.  I flew the plane all over Brazil last week on two mags and as they have for the last 100 years (in general, not for me!), the mags got me out and back.  To answer 1980Mooney, I had a shop pull it out and reinstall the mag, not the same shop that handled the install ... the reason being the install shop is a an hour and a half flight from home base and I had flown it home with what was probably advanced timing with the EGTs off the scale, zero ability to lean without engine roughage, and my heart in my hand.  The shop next door to my hangar talked to the shop that did the install, and pulled the Eletroair and put it in a box for me, reinstalling the previously removed mag.  

Will.iam (nice name BTW) ... I didn't go with Surefly because the STC is not approved by ANAC in Brazil to date, ElectroAirs was (don't know why) ... when I first started this little project I had read up on Surefly and understood that it could not be used on turbocharted engines, I just perused again their site and see that now it can be installed, as long as the ignition timing is set to off....

...everywhere I go in Brazil everyone asks about the plane, not many Mooney's here.  I was coming into the VFR corredor coming back Thursday and there was a Cirrus a mile in front of me appraching from my 1 o'clock to enter into the same corredor, I had to really repress the desire to floor it and race him in...hehehe

 

Thanks fir the info. From what i have read up on the advance timing would not help me as the turbo keeps a high enough MP. What i think would help is the hotter longer spark duration to help accelerate the slow burning lop mixtures so my egt and thus TIT would be lower with a higher RPM. Right now i have to lower my RPM to 2300 or 2200 with higher power lop to keep TIT at 1550 or accept a hotter TIT or lower power.