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Aerosport 375XP SDS EFI

rv6ejguy

Well Known Member
I was out in Kamloops at Aerosport this week, hooking up and running a 375ci clone with our SDS EM-5 EFI/EI setup.

kam3_zpsevryqsev.jpg


Learned a few new things here which we can apply to improving our product and making the process more seamless for our customers. Fired right up the first time with the base mapping. Got the values tweaked up for the extra cubes. Exceptional idle quality right down to 500 rpm.

Great bunch of people at Aerosport to work with. Nice to get away from our shop/ business for a couple days to play with engines and hang out with engine guys, trading stories.

kam5_zps6wlqkhw4.jpg
 
just poking fun. Good looking engine

Yes, Aerosport details and paints their engines very nicely. A lot of pride and care goes into their offerings. This particular engine was built up custom with EFI/EI in mind as it has a lightweight accessory cover with no provision for mounting mags at all.
 
I see V29 software for the EM-5 includes a LOP fuel trim coupled to switched control of the advance map. If I understand correctly, the user can set up a fuel flow and ignition advance schedule for best power operation, a preset additional leaning percentage to accompany more advance for LOP operation, and transition between the two schedules with a single switch flip.

Looks like a gross trim function, i.e. lean all injectors by the same percentage for the LOP schedule. At the practical level, is it working well across all likely cruise MP and RPM settings, or do the EGT spreads vary at different power settings?

More sensible incremental progress. Nice work Ross.
 
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Yes, Aerosport details and paints their engines very nicely. A lot of pride and care goes into their offerings. This particular engine was built up custom with EFI/EI in mind as it has a lightweight accessory cover with no provision for mounting mags at all.

Ross,

How much weight savings does the lightweight accessory cover yield verses the stock setup?

If there are no provisions for mags, can one still add a secondary/backup alternator back there?
 
Thats my understanding as well Dan. The now familliar "LOP switch" activates the ignition preset as before, but now adds a user definable gross fuel schedule adjustment. It replaces having to crank the mixture rheostat to find your "normal" LOP setting. My typical mission will climb out at full throttle as before, but now when I reach cruise altitude my power management duty is limited to flipping a single switch. And Ross has cleverly added a MP failsafe that deactivates this function in case I forget to reset the switch on descent. Need to grab a bunch of power on a botched landing but forgot the LOP switch? No problem. Ross has your back.

My mission is pretty tightly defined so if there is some variation in different power settings it will not concern me much, but I'll be happy to do some testing in this area once I'm up and running again. If you can't satisfy your curiosity elsewhere, shoot me some suggestions.
 
EM-57

I see V29 software for the EM-5 includes a LOP fuel trim coupled to switched control of the advance map. If I understand correctly, the user can set up a fuel flow and ignition advance schedule for best power operation, a preset additional leaning percentage to accompany more advance for LOP operation, and transition between the two schedules with a single switch flip.

Looks like a gross trim function, i.e. lean all injectors by the same percentage for the LOP schedule. At the practical level, is it working well across all likely cruise MP and RPM settings, or do the EGT spreads vary at different power settings?

More sensible incremental progress. Nice work Ross.

Thanks Dan.

Yes, this feature was suggested by users regularly flying LOP at similar power settings and altitudes. Once set up, this feature allows a very quick transition to LOP plus adds your preset ignition advance to bring back some of the lost power due to the lean mixture. You may then tweak your fuel trims to even out each cylinder's EGTs. We've placed some software MAP limits in here to prevent the ignition advance part from happening at the wrong time to help avoid inadvertent operation in the "Red Zone".

Shipping now are the new EM-57 boards which have on-PCB barometric sensors (no more daughter boards) and V 29.1 software which has more advanced setup modes for temp sensor pairing plus improved MAP sensor accuracy. There is also a new header strip for future connection possibilities into the CPU. Boards are also now machine conformal coated vs. hand done as before. This gives more consistent coverage for improved moisture/ humidity protection. Our military customers like this advance so we've just done it across the entire line as it's just easier during production and gives all users a higher quality product.

em57pcb_zpszrguntks.jpg
 
Ross,

How much weight savings does the lightweight accessory cover yield verses the stock setup?

If there are no provisions for mags, can one still add a secondary/backup alternator back there?

I'd have to talk to Aerosport on the weight savings, try to get back to you on that.

There are no holes/pads for any driven accessories on these lightweight covers. These were developed for markets where weight savings are considered a priority- aerobatic and extreme STOL applications.
 
Tell us more about the "375 clone". 375's were built with ECI parts, but of course ECI is no more, and the kit-engines-to-independent-shops question isn't entirely clear at Continental/Titan.

The engine in the photo is wearing Superior valve covers, and Aerosport has had a Superior-based 382 for some time. So what's up?
 
Tell us more about the "375 clone". 375's were built with ECI parts, but of course ECI is no more, and the kit-engines-to-independent-shops question isn't entirely clear at Continental/Titan.

The engine in the photo is wearing Superior valve covers, and Aerosport has had a Superior-based 382 for some time. So what's up?

Aerosport builds several combinations using different vendors parts. I'm no expert on what's inside but I sent an email to Rob there asking for more details on the 375. Understand there are certain things I can't discuss due to NDAs.
 
Aerosport builds several combinations using different vendors parts. I'm no expert on what's inside but I sent an email to Rob there asking for more details on the 375. Understand there are certain things I can't discuss due to NDAs.

Excellent. Maybe Rob will post some info. Aerosport is a VAF advertiser.

If Aerosport is supplying a complete engine model on an exclusive basis, I'll list it in the next Kitplanes Engine Buyers Guide. Understand about the NDA's; over here it's called "off the record".
 
Here's the response from Rob at Aerosport:

"A standard accessory housing cover with paint is 7.19 pounds
The magnesium accessory housing is 4.65 pounds
We can build the 375 with counterweighted crankshaft or a standard crankshaft or a 382 with a counterweighted crankshaft.

The current engine that has your SDS system, we will get a final weight on Monday for you. This 375 engine has a counterweighted crankshaft and my estimated weight is 275.0 pounds.

There are multiple upgrades and configurations that we can offer.

For people who are interested have them contact us on [email protected] or 250-376-2955 we have five people that monitor this e-mail."

Dan, best to contact Rob or one of the tech guys there, I'm sure they'd be happy to share info on what they're offering these days.
 
Aero Sport Power just finished running another 375 on the test stand 2 weeks ago with the full SDS EFI/EI system and the customer was very satisfied with the results.

Contact Darren Jones at Aero Sport: [email protected] / 250.376.2955 for more info on their 375 offerings.

Aero Sport has installed several SDS EFI systems now and we'll be working with them more in the future for those interested. I've made several trips out to their facility for training sessions with their techs. Great bunch of people out there.

We are getting into our traditionally busy time of the year now- Nov. to May when people seem to work on their airplanes more. We've got some new kit/ engine vendors to supply and lots of quotes out in the last 3 weeks so the orders are starting to come in now. We try to keep the shipping time down below a week from ordering normally but it looks like this will draw out a bit for at least the next month, maybe longer. We're currently shipping EM-5 with V 29.2 software and the new dimmable displays. We'll be coming out with several new products in 2018 as we continue to expand and improve the aviation product line.
 
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