Frank and Paul wrote (snip)
<<
> AS I was away for a week, I only scanned the messages on
> this subject. Was the inclusion of oil and coolant
> temperature and pressure rejected? These are high on my
> priority list.
Yes they were rejected because there are no oil or coolant sensors supplied
with the EFI computers. You will have to provide those along with gages.
Intake manifold
air temperature IS displayed because there is a sensor for this used by the
EFI computers.
>>
Without oil/coolant temperature and pressure readouts, I (we?) will be forced
to buy someone else's engine monitoring system. I would rather pay a little
(?) more for one that included fuel flow info than twice to get what is
needed. Besides, an all in one unit will save a lot of panel space.
I'm with Frank, so I have to buy the sensors, I will have to anyway from
somebody.
Bob Darrah
By all means do that. On the other hand if you want to run Tracy's EFI I think
you will need this display to allow you to taylor the EFI system to your airplane.
I could be wrong. Tracy may be supplying some crude indicators to substitute
for this display. I saw a column type LED indicating something on his instrument
panel (I forgot what its function was. I think it was mixture.) when he took
me for a ride. Tracy?
Programming the EFI computer I think is its primary purpose.
As such it is not designed to be a complete engine monitoring system.
Any engine monitoring system that has fuel flow will probably cost way more
than this system. Some fuel flow sensors alone will cost as much as this entire
display. With an EFI system you get fuel flow sensors for free
as the computer knows how much fuel is being injected. We are taking advantage
of that fact with this display, not only to show the amount of fuel being burned,
but it can calculate miles per gallon with input from a GPS. I know of no engine
monitoring system that can do that.
Also no aircraft engine monitoring system that
I know about provides intake air temperature or O2 sensor output.
The O2 sensor output will be very useful when first setting up the EFI for
your aircraft.
Finally, any complete engine monitoring system is one point of failure.
If you lose the system you lose all data from the engine. It is nice to have
separate gages monitoring different things so if one fails you are not completely
out of business.
Paul Lamar
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