New fluctuation in oil pressure

[kortopates]

You can get good advice here and I am the one who gave you what you quoted. I would caution you one thing. Advice is worth what you pay for it. I see you have Savvy analysis. I would, if I were you, at least invest in Savvy Q&A if not higher particularly with the high performance airplane you are flying. I have Q&A and have used it several times, if only for a sanity check. I recently came off a bad CHT probe situation and I used Q&A as a sanity check just to make sure I did not have a detonation situation.

He does and we’re taking good care of him. (of course, i am not biased at all ) thanks for the recommendation and kind words!


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[GeeBee]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

He does and we’re taking good care of him. (of course, i am not biased at all ) thanks for the recommendation and kind words!


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Then he is in great hands.

 

[AeroEng]

17 hours ago, kortopates said:

He does and we’re taking good care of him. (of course, i am not biased at all ) thanks for the recommendation and kind words!


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I couldn't agree more.  Paul, Bob and everyone else has been extremely helpful (and patient with me, as I learn all of this).

[AeroEng]

On 8/3/2022 at 4:13 AM, M20Doc said:

Broken or stuck piston rings in one or more cylinders, 550’s are known for this in my experience.  How dark is the oil? Blowby from stuck rings will darken your oil quickly.  Cylinder and spark plug examination and should point you to the offending cylinder.

No suction screen to check on your 550, it’s internal to the engine.  Only your filter for examination.

My oil gets dark pretty darn quick.  This is my first airplane, so I don't have much to compare to, but as an engineer I'm surprised by how quickly it goes dark...

[N201MKTurbo]

41 minutes ago, AeroEng said:

My oil gets dark pretty darn quick.  This is my first airplane, so I don't have much to compare to, but as an engineer I'm surprised by how quickly it goes dark...

Oil gets dark from carbon. If you run LOP there is no carbon left in the combustion chamber. It all gets converted to CO and CO2. Your oil will look good much longer.

[LANCECASPER]

4 hours ago, AeroEng said:

My oil gets dark pretty darn quick.  This is my first airplane, so I don't have much to compare to, but as an engineer I'm surprised by how quickly it goes dark...

Did you get a chance to go back in the logs and see if the Service Bulletins that I mentioned in a previous post have ever been done with your airplane?

On the Acclaim that's the first place I'd look. When engines started exhibiting these symptoms, along with coking in the exhaust in 2007-10 there were a lot of invasive things tried and the hoses going into and out of the air/oil separator (especially the out hose that goes down to the exhaust) turned out to be the main culprit. I included the pdfs of those bulletins in that early post on this thread.

 

(Also two of the previous owners of your airplane were on the forum. You may do a search under OrangeMTL and AcclaimML to see their posts. Especially this post:)

 

[AeroEng]

6 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Oil gets dark from carbon. If you run LOP there is no carbon left in the combustion chamber. It all gets converted to CO and CO2. Your oil will look good much longer.

I always cruise LOP, which makes the dark oil all the more frustrating…. Thanks for the thought though. Much appreciated. 

[AeroEng]

5 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

Did you get a chance to go back in the logs and see if the Service Bulletins that I mentioned in a previous post have ever been done with your airplane?

On the Acclaim that's the first place I'd look. When engines started exhibiting these symptoms, along with coking in the exhaust in 2007-10 there were a lot of invasive things tried and the hoses going into and out of the air/oil separator (especially the out hose that goes down to the exhaust) turned out to be the main culprit. I included the pdfs of those bulletins in that early post on this thread.

 

(Also two of the previous owners of your airplane were on the forum. You may do a search under OrangeMTL and AcclaimML to see their posts. Especially this post:)

 

Thanks for the advice. Maybe 600 hours later it’s time for another top end…

[Guest]

8 hours ago, AeroEng said:

My oil gets dark pretty darn quick.  This is my first airplane, so I don't have much to compare to, but as an engineer I'm surprised by how quickly it goes dark...

Dirty black oil is usually caused by stuck or broken rings.  Most commonly stuck rings in a 550.  There is talk here of a chemical ring flush to dissolve the carbon and loosen the rings.  In my opinion a cylinder hone and a new set of rings is the correct fix.

[Fly Boomer]

14 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Dirty black oil is usually caused by stuck or broken rings.  Most commonly stuck rings in a 550.  There is talk here of a chemical ring flush to dissolve the carbon and loosen the rings.  In my opinion a cylinder hone and a new set of rings is the correct fix.

I'm not aware of anyone around here with more knowledge and experience than Clarence, but I don't see any downside to trying the ring flush.  If it doesn't help, yanking jugs is always a plan "B".

[AeroEng]

A long overdue update on this thread just to close the loop. The problem was with the connections that run from the engine to the g1000 system.  My A&P disconnected the plugs and cleaned them (with appropriate safe spray) and all of the oddness went away. Purely an electrical issue. Didn’t solve my oil burn issues, but I’m due for an annual in a month or so and will do a deep dive then. 
 

I think maybe the reason it started when I went higher is the air flows around the engine change with different pressure and maybe some wind was blowing the connector around differently at higher altitudes, causing it to spaz out? Only a guess obviously. 
 

Thanks again for all the great advice. Truly appreciated. 

[A64Pilot]

On 8/4/2022 at 5:58 PM, Fly Boomer said:

I'm not aware of anyone around here with more knowledge and experience than Clarence, but I don't see any downside to trying the ring flush.  If it doesn't help, yanking jugs is always a plan "B".

It will help, but only for awhile, if you don’t fix what caused the rings to gum up the first time, they will gum up again.

I don’t mean to speak for others, but Clarence seems to be telling you to fix the problem, not the symptom.

[Fly Boomer]

16 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

It will help, but only for awhile, if you don’t fix what caused the rings to gum up the first time, they will gum up again.

I don’t mean to speak for others, but Clarence seems to be telling you to fix the problem, not the symptom.

I can imagine some engine management practices that might have caused or contributed to the ring "problem" and, if those behaviors were changed, the ring flush might last a long time.  I'm no A&P, so I don't know what those specific behaviors might be, but the ring flush is cheap and easy, whereas a new jug is way more expensive and riskier to boot.  I understand that it's not really a "fix", but if there was a possibility to extend the life of the jug for a couple of hundred hours, I would want to try it.

[Guest]

I have the recipe for the ring flush at work, it’s a mixture of Xylene, MEK, varsol and W100 oil, supposed to have been developed by Ed Kollin of Cam Guard fame.

We tried it recently on a TSIO-550K in a Cirrus that at around 300 hours started consuming oil like crazy and turning it dark black.  It didn’t do much to improve the situation.  The owner is pondering cylinder removal.