I have a manifold pressure gauge in my KR. It's nice for fine tuning throttle settings and calculating percent power, but it's only there as a personal preference and is completely unnecessary without a constant speed prop. Can't say that I would be able to diagnose valve issues or engine health with it. I find EGTs and a static compression differential test to be a much better indicator of what's going on with the engine.
1 EGT running 50 - 100° higher than normal is an indication that a spark plug is not firing. All EGTs running 50-100° higher than normal is an indication that a mag may have failed. Just pulling the engine through as part of your preflight should indicate if you have a valve or cylinder issue as you'll feel the soft cylinder and will hear it leaking. I've seen a lot of different failures in aircraft engines, but short of launching a cylinder off the case, I don't think the manifold pressure gauge [vacuum gauge] is going to tell you much other than your throttle setting for a given altitude. -Jeff Scott Los Alamos, NM -------------- Subject: KR> cockpit vacuum gauge Anyone running a vacuum gauge in their panel. Is it not an indicator of engine health, valves etc Craig _______________________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at http://tugantek.com/archmailv2-kr/search. Please see LIST RULES and KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html. see http://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet_list.krnet.org to change options To UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@list.krnet.org