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


Congrats.

Jay

IMHO it is time Tracy started looking at other engine parameters
when tuning the engine. I have always maintained having the
computer look at the EGT's is one option. Switching to a
mass air flow sensor instead of just intake manifold pressure
is another. A third is standardizing on measuring the
intake pressure in the apex seal oil injectors.

Speaking of that Brian where are you taping off the intake
manifold pressure?

Try taping the pressure in the apex
seal lube holes. We have some taps machined we sell for that
purpose for $20 each. If you are not happy with them and they do
not help your problem send them back I will refund your cash.

This is not a unique problem with Tracy's EFI.

The EFI in this race car has the same problem and
it is addressed by a large vacuum accumulator which is
the chunk of PVC pipe in this picture.

Paul Lamar


C. Smith


Now something funny is happening to my e-mail.
What I originally had typed in was:

This is why we are rooting for your success with the "555" EFI
and CDI ignition
projects Paul. We need simplicity and reliability,
low cost is a secondary requirement.

If I had my engine in a condition to test, I would be right there
volunteering,
but there are too many dollars between here and there at this moment.
Selling some guns, my pick up truck, and anything else I don't
need to raise the
capital to move forward during the winter.
By the way, has anyone been paying attention to Ford stock? Looks
like I'll be
able to retire at a reasonable age after all. ;-)
C. Smith


It could have been me. I use a Word Star clone called joe running
on Linux that has the ability to reformat paragraphs. I do that
to fix what happened to your message above. Something that
most email programs cannot do. Here is what it looks like
after it is reformatted:

---------------------------------------------------------
"If I had my engine in a condition to test, I would be right
there volunteering, but there are too many dollars between here
and there at this moment. Selling some guns, my pick up truck,
and anything else I don't need to raise the capital to move
forward during the winter. By the way, has anyone been paying
attention to Ford stock? Looks like I'll be able to retire at a
reasonable age after all. ;-)"
---------------------------------------------------------------

The process is cutting the message out of Thunderbird and pasting
it into joe. Then pressing a key or two to reformat the message.
Then cutting and pasting it back into Thunderbird.

I don't know why email program editors do not do reformatting.
Most email programs just makes hash out of forwarded emails.
I have tried everything to keep Thunderbird from doing that.
I sorely miss that feature of WordStar.

Could be some of your text got lost in the process. Sorry.
I'll be more careful in the future.

Paul Lamar


Paul,
Let me know where to send some $$$ to your for those taps. I'm
going to leave no stone unturned until I get this thing running
smoothly. You should have seen the stares from people when I
taxiied back from my flight with the engine popping and
stumbling. It would have been funny had it not be me in the plane.

Brian Trubee

I just sent that out.
But here it is again.

Send cash only registered if you wish.
No checks no CC's no money orders, Just green US cash
or gold :)

to:
Paul Lamar
830 East Santa Maria Street,
Suite #303 <<<< very important.
Santa Paula CA 93060

Your not the first person to have trouble tuning an EFI.
Mark Suspinski messed around for at least a year.

snips..

Paul Lamar

       
Thank you for sharing that.  I'm building a plane of my own design and have a Renisis waiting to go in it.  Any all info on the rotary is very appreciated!!


Gary Schwarz               

Read everything on the web site and don't be bashful
about asking questions on anything that is not clear.
I use the questions and answers to up date the web site.

Paul Lamar