KRnetHeads, At the risk of posting most of today's messages, I wanted to update the ignition problem on N891JF that kept me from flying to Chino. Joe and I both were unimpressed with the tiny spark that you almost had to imagine that you were seeing and hearing at the spark plug. I think it was just coincidence that the ignition switch broke that morning, because even after replacing it with another one I still had intermittent starting problems, definitely igntion related...sometimes it would never hit a single time...just grind away until I gave up and went home. My luck was usually better on warmer days, when the battery didn't have to work so hard. Granted, the system voltage was dropping down to 9.85 volts during starting, so I changed to starting the engine on the backup battery...a full 12.8 volts, and that didn't even work in the end. I called the Compufire folks and they said it should fire down to 7V, and I described the weird thing it would do...backfire when I swapped from main to backup power source...interrupting power and then restoring it quickly as the DPDT switch was cycled. The tech guy said that sounds like the coilpack, so I ordered a new one and installed it Friday. It fired right up! Fired up again this afternoon, and I put another great hour on it. Problem solved. I also ordered a new battery to replace my 6 year-old Odyssey AGM, although I didn't think it was the culprit. Now that I know for sure it was the coilpack, I'll install the new battery and make the old Odyssey as the backup, for a much longer backup battery for fuel pump and ignition.
I've still been calibrating the fuel totalizer, and am gradually fine tuning it. I finally got smart and set the "virtual tank" to 100 gallons, and then started burning it off. Today I filled it up for the third time, and had replaced 21.5 gallons of burned fuel. Checking the virtual tank, it was down to 78.6. That's a difference of .1 gallons...something like .13%, which is CLOSE ENOUGH FOR KR work! And admittedly that's way within the range of potential measurement error. So the numbers of 150 mph TAS while burning 3.8 gallons per hour have not been wishful thinking, but efficient reality. That's not quite as good as N56ML would do (3.8 gph @160 mph), but it's not bad for a RAF-48 winged plane! That's still 40 MPG, and it's slightly better with hotter weather, where it will do 150 mph TAS @ 3.6 gph...44.4 mpg! Can't complain about that. Even at the little airport I flew into today, it drew a crowd. The Cessna drivers were awe-struck... -- Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com http://www.n56ml.com
