Mooney 231 Slow Climbout

[carusoam]

Nat,

There are two offers above for gaining some Mooney experience…

Consider taking them up on their offers!

Dan is a CFII that is known for his Mooney transition training skills…

Ken has the most GA aircraft skills from the 30 (?) planes he has owned over time…. Also a CFI…..

The coolest thing you can get by bringing a Mooney CFI along… he may see something not being right in either the machine or the pilot…

There are procedures available to get the most out of your Mooney…

Kind of takes the creativity out of your early ownership experience…

Best regards,

-a-

[Shadrach]

8 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Used to be all Maule pubs were available on their website for free download, but I think they turned over pubs to a company that charges now.

However it’s not likely to give you the number we are after, because I’m 99% sure they are all ROP, and if TIT is high, you run richer to cool the exhausts and are wasting fuel.

To do charts we would need LOP charts, which I think are uncommon, and NA motors don’t worry about exhaust temps, but turbo motors do worry about TIT, which of course is high EGT, just measured a little further away.

I’ve tried googling what a turbo does for bsfc and efficiency, and everything is dumbed down, can’t get a simple answer, but large ship motors for instance, they don’t care how big or heavy they are but the do care about fuel efficiency, and they are all turbocharged for efficiency, some are even two stage turbocharged, again for fuel efficiency, the Wartsilia’s for instance are often multi fuel, even gasoline or natural gas so it’s not just a Diesel thing.

Of course a turbo airplane uses more fuel than a NA airplane, because it’s going faster, but fly it right beside its NA brother it should be burning slightly less.

Just like contrary to what would make sense my IO-540 Maule flown in formation with an IO-360 burned slightly less fuel, the 540 must have been more efficient because the power was nearly identical, it wasn’t a big difference, but it was there, which still confuses me, I guess the 540 must be slightly more efficient, or he was flying out of trim or something who knows.

 

So compare peak.  There's a number for Peak EGT in the 231 manual.  I'd bet there's a number in the Maul manual for peak as well.

[A64Pilot]

What would we be comparing two nearly identical turbo motors? Your talking about the M5 - 210TC right?

I don’t understand

[Shadrach]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

What would we be comparing two nearly identical turbo motors? Your talking about the M5 - 210TC right?

I don’t understand

Nope. 

M-5-210C Strata Rocket. 210hp NA Continental IO-360-D.  

[Bolter]

8 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

The other large difference between a car turbo and an aircraft is that in cars they are there to significantly boost HP, not so much in an aircraft, they are there to maintain HP, the difference is the amount of boost. I ran over 30 PSI boost in my Duramax, that’s over 90” manifold pressure.

It’s not uncommon in a car to almost double HP with a turbo at sea level, but aircraft engines usually operate at low boost.

You can draw some correlations between the two, but they are different, for example more auto turbos center sections are water cooled now making hot shutdowns not much of an issue.

Direct Injection Diesels in particular get lots of boost with lower risk as there is no fuel in the cylinder until it is injected in a well controlled way, directly into the combustion chamber.  No detonation risk from over-boosting like in a car when there is only air being compressed.  

[Shadrach]

22 minutes ago, Bolter said:

Direct Injection Diesels in particular get lots of boost with lower risk as there is no fuel in the cylinder until it is injected in a well controlled way, directly into the combustion chamber.  No detonation risk from over-boosting like in a car when there is only air being compressed.  

The tech is pretty amazing. Modern Diesel injectors can make multiple injections in a single combustion cycle. 

[Schllc]

13 hours ago, Shadrach said:

No experience with either of those planes but my experience climbing against a Bravo in my F suggests that your 400agl number is missing a zero. 
 

 

I probably explained it poorly the first time. 
I’m comparing the acclaim to an ovation.  I have about 450 hours in ovations and about 600 in acclaims. 
From takeoff to about 400-500’ the ovation is much faster in the climb than the acclaim. It launches off the runway, and the acclaim almost feels anemic when you are accustomed to the ovation. At around the 400-500 foot altitude the acclaim is at least as fast as the ovation and slowly starts to out climb the ovation, so the ROC difference after 4-500’  is probably not much until 4000-5000’, which is when the difference becomes really noticeable. 

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, Bolter said:

Direct Injection Diesels in particular get lots of boost with lower risk as there is no fuel in the cylinder until it is injected in a well controlled way, directly into the combustion chamber.  No detonation risk from over-boosting like in a car when there is only air being compressed.  

DI gas motors can be the same, Mazda is building a DI spark / compression motor that runs on gasoline.

https://insidemazda.mazdausa.com/the-mazda-way/technology/five-things-need-know-worlds-first-compression-ignition-engine/

[carusoam]

Are we discussing 310hp?

Because there is an apples to oranges difference from 280 to 310hp…

-a-

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, Shadrach said:

The tech is pretty amazing. Modern Diesel injectors can make multiple injections in a single combustion cycle. 

Common rail, where an accumulator carries high pressure Diesel in it, up to 50,000 PSI and electronically fired injectors.

The ultra high pressure allows very short injection events as you can get the fuel in faster in less time, it also raises RPM limits and variable timing that’s not possible with mechanical injection

Ford calls the multiple injection shots, split shot, GM / Isuzu calls it pilot injection, both have an RPM limit where multiple injections aren’t possible, the pilot injection was the reason a Diesel can idle so quietly, the pilot shot was a small portion and early, once it lit the main injection shot fuel into already burning fuel so there was no delay, no delay, no knock or rattle, it also enables a significant HP increase, real significant.

So far as I know for some reason I don’t think any aircraft Diesels are common rail, I can’t imagine why not.

Duramax Top Fuel Diesel

 

[carusoam]

How about an engine that runs at max power (65%bhp) for 2k hrs… 

The drag car is nice, but…

How many quarter miles are there in 2k hrs?

Best regards,

-a-

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, Shadrach said:

Nope. 

M-5-210C Strata Rocket. 210hp NA Continental IO-360-D.  

I thought you were talking the M-5 -210TC which had a turbo and could cruise at 170 kts if you took it to FL200

https://fullthrottleaviation.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/airplane-review-turbo-maule-m5-210/

Either way I don’t have access to the charts and wouldn’t put a whole lot in them anyway, they are flown by someone like me with standard instrumentation and there are only a few actual rest points with a large portion of the chart extrapolated, when you try to really pull data from them you’ll find they aren’t as precise as you would like them to be, it’s the nature of the game.

Charts are actually relatively new to the small airplane world, many belly 6,000 gross airplanes didn’t have them because the FAA didn’t mandate them. None of the Thrush aircraft had them until we increased the gross certified weight to 10,500 and then the charts weren’t much, but no Ag pilot honestly ever looks at a chart anyway

[A64Pilot]

11 minutes ago, carusoam said:

How about an engine that runs at max power (65%bhp) for 2k hrs… 

The drag car is nice, but…

How many quarter miles are there in 2k hrs?

Best regards,

-a-

Point is without common rail a dragster Diesel was a silly supposition, but common rail among other things really, really woke up the Diesel engine

Current Duramax in the Chevy pickup

L5P[edit]

The L5P duramax is the latest version of the Duramax V8 diesel engine.(engine code Y) Introduced in the 2017 model year it is the most powerful diesel pickup truck engine GM has produced with 445 hp (332 kW) at 2,800 rpm and 910 lb⋅ft (1,234 N⋅m) at 1,600 rpm. Design spec performance can exceed 550 bhp (410 kW) at 3050 rpm and 1,050 lb⋅ft (1,424 N⋅m) at 1975 rpm.

[carusoam]

1 minute ago, A64Pilot said:

 

L5P[edit]

The L5P duramax is the latest version of the Duramax V8 diesel engine.(engine code Y) Introduced in the 2017 model year it is the most powerful diesel pickup truck engine GM has produced with 445 hp (332 kW) at 2,800 rpm and 910 lb⋅ft (1,234 N⋅m) at 1,600 rpm. Design spec performance can exceed 550 bhp (410 kW) at 3050 rpm and 1,050 lb⋅ft (1,424 N⋅m) at 1975 rpm.

This is sounding a lot more interesting…

2800rpm, no gear box required….

probably still over 400hp at 2700 rpm for the TopProp…

Might have a tail size challenge using that much hp in a Mooney…

Longevity… is important.  But, a Chevy truck engine that goes half the distance is financially pretty good too…

Best regards,

-a-

[Shadrach]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

Common rail, where an accumulator carries high pressure Diesel in it, up to 50,000 PSI and electronically fired injectors.

The ultra high pressure allows very short injection events as you can get the fuel in faster in less time, it also raises RPM limits and variable timing that’s not possible with mechanical injection

Ford calls the multiple injection shots, split shot, GM / Isuzu calls it pilot injection, both have an RPM limit where multiple injections aren’t possible, the pilot injection was the reason a Diesel can idle so quietly, the pilot shot was a small portion and early, once it lit the main injection shot fuel into already burning fuel so there was no delay, no delay, no knock or rattle, it also enables a significant HP increase, real significant.

So far as I know for some reason I don’t think any aircraft Diesels are common rail, I can’t imagine why not.

Duramax Top Fuel Diesel

 

This one has common rail and is EASA certified.

 

[carusoam]

3 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

This one has common rail and is EASA certified.

 

Ross,

I saw this video earlier today…

I was expecting to at least see the engine…

It has a nice carbon fiber cowl… that apparently doesn’t come off…

it’s a video about the engine!

yet no engine ever gets shown…

 

I wanted my tenth of a cent back…  

Best regards,

-a-

 

[A64Pilot]

Common rail makes a Diesel a hot rod. Our first Z28 was a 93, first year of the L series engines that are still the small blocks to beat, our LT-1 was the first year the HP came back, the 93 Z28 was both the quickest and fastest Camaro ever built. It made 275 HP.

‘Current Duramax Diesel is 445 HP and with just programming is 550 HP, and they easily go 500,000 miles or more.

‘It’s not lightweight or simple with four overhead cams and 32 valves, but at 500+ HP it’s not your Fathers Diesel either.

‘In my old Duramax and I’m sure the new ones are more sophisticated but it monitored the power out put of each cylinder somehow and would adjust individual injector pulsewidth to make each cylinder perfectly balanced, it also could if it sensed an overheat start shutting down cylinders and moving them around so that it could run without coolant for an extended time, the dead cylinders pumping air through effectively become air cooled, first seen in Cadillac’s Northstar engine I think.

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2019/03/30/how-cadillacs-northstar-v8-turns-into-an-air-cooled-engine-to-prevent-overheating/

Common rail for Diesels are a game changer, smooth quiet and powerful, but still somewhat heavy, Duramax even with aluminum heads is over 800 lbs.

With common rail we may I think see a workable Diesel aircraft engine, maybe

But with the Gami fuel, do we need one?

[natdm]

23 hours ago, KLRDMD said:

I'm happy to fly with you sometime and review LOP operations on a M20K.

Thanks, Ken! I'm in the midwest at the moment and it sounds like I'll be really close to @DanM20C, so I've hit him up and we can hopefully meet up in the next few weeks.

 

This threads been great, thank you so far, everyone.

[carusoam]

9 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

Common rail makes a Diesel a hot rod. Our first Z28 was a 93, first year of the L series engines that are still the small blocks to beat, our LT-1 was the first year the HP came back, the 93 Z28 was both the quickest and fastest Camaro ever built. It made 275 HP.

‘Current Duramax Diesel is 445 HP and with just programming is 550 HP, and they easily go 500,000 miles or more.

‘It’s not lightweight or simple with four overhead cams and 32 valves, but at 500+ HP it’s not your Fathers Diesel either.

‘In my old Duramax and I’m sure the new ones are more sophisticated but it monitored the power out put of each cylinder somehow and would adjust individual injector pulsewidth to make each cylinder perfectly balanced, it also could if it sensed an overheat start shutting down cylinders and moving them around so that it could run without coolant for an extended time, the dead cylinders pumping air through effectively become air cooled, first seen in Cadillac’s Northstar engine I think.

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2019/03/30/how-cadillacs-northstar-v8-turns-into-an-air-cooled-engine-to-prevent-overheating/

Common rail for Diesels are a game changer, smooth quiet and powerful, but still somewhat heavy, Duramax even with aluminum heads is over 800 lbs.

With common rail we may I think see a workable Diesel aircraft engine, maybe

But with the Gami fuel, do we need one?

My L98 wore out the valve guides at 140k mi… smoke show on start up…

My LT1 was still going strong at 200k mi… sun has mostly killed the car around it… 

I like driving the diesels in Europe… no stops for fuel in a week.

[Ricky_231]

A little  late to the discussion, but here's how I do it on my '79K -LB1 engine w/ intercooler and merlyn wastegate: 38"/2700 RPM (in reality 2650) for takeoff, rotate at ~70knots, gear up, flaps up, then set it to 33"/2600RPM (what I like to call "climb power"). Pitch for 100-110KIAS, and that'll give me 600-700fpm depending on weight, DA etc. with a cool engine.

[Fly Boomer]

On 10/4/2022 at 12:51 PM, Ricky_231 said:

A little  late to the discussion, but here's how I do it on my '79K -LB1 engine w/ intercooler and merlyn wastegate: 38"/2700 RPM (in reality 2650) for takeoff, rotate at ~70knots, gear up, flaps up, then set it to 33"/2600RPM (what I like to call "climb power"). Pitch for 100-110KIAS, and that'll give me 600-700fpm depending on weight, DA etc. with a cool engine.

What happens if you leave the power in during climb?

[Ricky_231]

On 10/7/2022 at 12:33 PM, Fly Boomer said:

What happens if you leave the power in during climb?

I've never left it for too long, but what I've seen it climbs a little faster (800 - 1000fpm? I really never left it there long enough to give you a precise, stable number) while burning 22-24gph and the engine isn't as cool. At 33" I can close the cowl flaps most days and still get a really good climb with low temps, a little less fuel burn.

By the way, after writing this post, I paid a little more attention to my climb out yesterday, and I was doing 750fpm with 33"/2600RPM, 2 pax, full tanks + bags (55oF)

[natdm]

Quick update on this thread:

Met with @DanM20C when I was in Minnesota and gained a ton of knowledge on M20K's in general. Dan did state the plane seemed slower in general than his M20K 231, which is nearly the same configuration. He pointed out the rigging seems like it might be off. I was going to have a mechanic look at it when I got home, but one of the magnetos started having an absolutely massive drop. Turns out a seal went bad, and it had some oil in the magneto. Got that IRAN'd, all spark plugs re-gapped, one replaced, etc. The plane had just received an annual, pre-purchase, and another thorough checkup by my own mechanic, 120 hours earlier (4-5 months prior). A lot had changed since then, apparently. 

Didn't have it in me to keep the plane in the shop too much longer for a rigging check, as I've got some avionics to upgrade as well. Once the avionics are done, and I'm sure I won't get laid off in this shitty economy, I'll send the plane back in for some rigging analysis.

[natdm]

Last update:

Annual came in with an overhaul on the wastegate, and re-rigging the landing gear that had the front door open 2.5". 

I've only done one flight since the annual since the previous mechanic messed up the avionics so bad, but it climbed a heck of a lot faster than it used to. 

[PeteMc]

2 minutes ago, natdm said:

but it climbed a heck of a lot faster than it used to. 

Excellent!

Sounds like the shop that did this Annual knew what they were doing.  I recently moved, so I'm a little edgy on what's going to happen next year when my Annual comes around.