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First flight - again...

mrblob

Well Known Member
Last October, I flew the 358th hour on my RV-7, then removed the Subaru Firewall Forward. Since then, I've been working on installing a proper airplane engine. I started down a path with a carbureted Lycoming O-360, but switched direction and installed an ECi Titan IO-370 Stroker with Precision Silverhawk FI and dual P-Mags spinning a Hartzell BA prop. On Thursday, I pulled onto the runway and gave it the beans. That's when I discovered what the RV Grin is really about. Performance like my plane has never experienced!

Temps were a bit high for my liking, but that seems to be a consistent theme while breaking in a new engine. On the second flight today, CHTs were all down in the 380s and 390s, and oil temp was below 200 in cruise, so I think the rings are seating. I can't wait to get a few more hours into the break in so I can really start exploring the performance envelope. Then it's off to the paint shop!
 
Congrats Paul,

It must feel great to be back in the air.

I am enjoying the PMags I bought from you, 1 installed and flying, second one being installed soon, taking it one step at a time.

Cheers
 
I have an H-6 on the front of my -7. The installation was as advertised. I hung the thing in one evening, and had no trouble following the step by step guide to complete the electrical and plumbing. First engine start was as easy and smooth as starting my car. At this point, the cooling solution is well documented on the yahoo group and couldn't possibly be any more difficult than getting baffles right. While there were some delays getting the Gen 3 gearbox delivered, I'm not about to complain about it... I've been building for 6 years, I'm not in a hurry. More importantly, every time I've had a question or concern, I've received a personal response either by email or phone very promptly. I'm a very satisfied Eggenfellner customer.

Paul, the above quote was one you made on VansAirforce in January 2008. Given that you have now replaced the Eggenfellner engine in your aircraft with a conventional aircraft engine (presumably at considerable expense) would it be fair to surmise that you are no longer "a very satisfied Eggenfellner customer". ;)
 
Paul, the above quote was one you made on VansAirforce in January 2008. Given that you have now replaced the Eggenfellner engine in your aircraft with a conventional aircraft engine (presumably at considerable expense) would it be fair to surmise that you are no longer "a very satisfied Eggenfellner customer". ;)

Yikes. I was so naive. I wrote that before I was flying the Subie. At the time Eggenfellner was being fairly responsive to my issues, but I was still giving him money. That was also during his heyday while he was still producing lots of engines. Long story short, I fought some heating issues, did a top end overhaul after about 100 hours, had to replace the Subaru factory ECU that Jan never should have been selling (Ross's SDS product was awesome, btw), and never got the performance that Jan advertised. I cornered him at Osh a few years ago, and told him I was working through a lot of problems, and all he said was, "yeah, a lot of people seem to have problems with them." His customer service deteriorated to blaming the customer for installing it wrong.

I did get the engine to a pretty usable state after awhile, but it wasn't very representative of the Eggenfellner product by that point. I documented the performance pretty thoroughly in a video before I sold it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUh9utwIF_Y

At the risk of thread drift, that's all I have to say about the Subie.

I'm excited for the 370 and the Hartzell. I think that combination is going to put me close to the top end of the performance curve.
 
Paul,
Congrats on getting back in the air. Question about the 370. Who was the builder on it? I'll be interested to hear about your ongoing experiences with it.
 
Break in the engine under 380/390 is best if you can. Full rich or the best way is low level WOT around 2600-2700 noise abatement permitting and 80dF LOP.

Will be broken in by 4-5 hours.
 
Congratulation!

Congratulations! That's quite the expensive engine conversion! I'm temped to say a LOT of things about the whole EGG thing but I'm going to keep my mouth shut. The best Egg I like comes in green and it's used for smoking food..... :) Did I mention I like food...
Brian
 
Paul,
Congrats on getting back in the air. Question about the 370. Who was the builder on it? I'll be interested to hear about your ongoing experiences with it.

I ordered the engine complete direct from ECi. They have a sister company that actually does the assembly. I think they're called American Engineering (or something like that... I'd have to check the logs to verify). All of my interaction was direct with ECi. Showed up with two hours of test cell time, and started right up with no issues for the first run on the plane.
 
Break in the engine under 380/390 is best if you can. Full rich or the best way is low level WOT around 2600-2700 noise abatement permitting and 80dF LOP.

Will be broken in by 4-5 hours.

I'm getting up to about 425 in climb, then they come right back down in cruise (ECi says redline is 475 on this engine). I'm getting 390, 390, 380, and 375 for most of the flight with oil at about 190. That's running full rich. I'd love to see them come down some more soon as avgas is an expensive coolant. At least they're manageable and I'm not cooking my new engine.
 
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