I had my first flight of my RV-4 today, the flying qualities were such that it felt as if the plane took off and landed itself. The engine was pretty rough- I it ran smoothly on the ground, but on climb out and downwind it felt like it was cutting out about once a second and there was popping from unburnt fuel blowing out the exhaust.  Engine rpm was 5300 on the downwind, airspeed read 70 kts, which I don't believe. The prop is a catto 74 dia by 88 pitch. engine temps never got over 185 coolant, 180 oil. Nest time I take my gps to check airspeed.

Here's what I  believe is going on- mixture is way too rich, so I ran it on the ground and leaned it out quite a bit- seems to run nice and smoothly now. It was 70 degrees today, the coolant would get up to 190 when at full throttle on the ground, and was getting 5500 rpm static, oil was lagging behind at around 175. As soon as I throttled back, oil and coolant temps would start trending downward immediately, so I think the cooling will not be an issue.

Next nice day that I'm off work, I'll go out again, but planning on staying within gliding distance of our 9100 foot runway for the first 15 hours or so.

Brian Trubee
RV-4