Well it's been six months since I last flew. After the top end work, I had a AP on the field do the test flight, almost 3 hours. After that my mechanic cleared us to go fly, with a caution that we are still breaking in the new cylinders so stay close to roads and airfields, and keep it loaded and rich.
Take off was much better than previously, even with it being 80* out and 2800 foot density altitude, I cautiously climbed out and got almost 650FPM at 85MPH before turning crosswind.
Since we are still in the break in period, we ran mostly full throttle at varying altitude and stayed full-rich. Engine started out making 2600 RPM at full throttle in level flight, after 45 minutes we were making 2675, just shy of the red line.
On the first test flight, the pilot reported EGTs in the 1380 range. EGTs on this flight were 1230-1330 except #3 which started out in the same range but dropped during the flight down to a consistent 1030. Cylinder head temps are 350-380 except for #3 again, which is 270. Oil pressure was a little bit below the top of the green arc, and oil temp a little hot at roughly 210 on the Piper gauge.....a needle width or two below the top of the green arc.
The only glitch was when pulling the power back to start our approach, at 2200-2300 RPMs it shakes a little bit. Not like losing a cylinder, I'm told that will really shake you up. Just a little, like driving on a tire with a slightly bulged sidewall. It cleared up during the approach as we reduced power further. On the ground when we ran it up to shut it down, it sounded and felt great at 1800 and 1200 RPM. So it appears to only be at that power setting.
I spoke to my engine guy and he said with four hours on it so far, the cylinders are probably not running the same, so I probably have compression mismatches as well as spark plugs starting to oil foul since they are "wet". It used a little less than 1/2 qt. in an hour flight. I pulled the prop through by hand after we landed and definitely have one cylinder that is making full compression, but the rest aren't yet. My mechanic says we should start seeing it smooth out in the next 2-3 hours. These are chrome rings by the way, in steel cylinders. We are going to check the spark plugs and do a compression check to see if the cooler running cylinder correlates to the one that compression came up on it.
Any other thoughts on things to check and watch for are welcome. I'm trying to learn about this stuff from as many avenues as possible.......
And it was GREAT to be flying again!
Take off was much better than previously, even with it being 80* out and 2800 foot density altitude, I cautiously climbed out and got almost 650FPM at 85MPH before turning crosswind.
Since we are still in the break in period, we ran mostly full throttle at varying altitude and stayed full-rich. Engine started out making 2600 RPM at full throttle in level flight, after 45 minutes we were making 2675, just shy of the red line.
On the first test flight, the pilot reported EGTs in the 1380 range. EGTs on this flight were 1230-1330 except #3 which started out in the same range but dropped during the flight down to a consistent 1030. Cylinder head temps are 350-380 except for #3 again, which is 270. Oil pressure was a little bit below the top of the green arc, and oil temp a little hot at roughly 210 on the Piper gauge.....a needle width or two below the top of the green arc.
The only glitch was when pulling the power back to start our approach, at 2200-2300 RPMs it shakes a little bit. Not like losing a cylinder, I'm told that will really shake you up. Just a little, like driving on a tire with a slightly bulged sidewall. It cleared up during the approach as we reduced power further. On the ground when we ran it up to shut it down, it sounded and felt great at 1800 and 1200 RPM. So it appears to only be at that power setting.
I spoke to my engine guy and he said with four hours on it so far, the cylinders are probably not running the same, so I probably have compression mismatches as well as spark plugs starting to oil foul since they are "wet". It used a little less than 1/2 qt. in an hour flight. I pulled the prop through by hand after we landed and definitely have one cylinder that is making full compression, but the rest aren't yet. My mechanic says we should start seeing it smooth out in the next 2-3 hours. These are chrome rings by the way, in steel cylinders. We are going to check the spark plugs and do a compression check to see if the cooler running cylinder correlates to the one that compression came up on it.
Any other thoughts on things to check and watch for are welcome. I'm trying to learn about this stuff from as many avenues as possible.......
And it was GREAT to be flying again!
