Friday, I went down to SC to replace
my fuel rail, which had developed a slight leak. Had three days of perfect
weather. High temperatures in the upper 60’s, clear skies, and light
winds. I replaced the fuel rail, and after switching to different o-rings on
the RC engineering injectors, I got a perfect seal. The stock Mazda seals
would not work on these injectors, but thankfully Paul Brannon had the correct
o-rings.
It was getting dusk, but I managed to
get in one trip around the pattern.
On Saturday I made two flights,
totally a little over an hour, and everything ran great. Well, other than I
messed with the mixture on mode 3, and ended up being too lean when I throttled
down in the pattern.
Yesterday, I made the flight of about
190 NM and the plane and engine were perfect. It was a beautiful day, and
while not unlimited visibility, it was probably 30-40 miles, clear skies, and
very smooth air at my cruising altitude of 3500 MSL. I flew the trip at about
55-60 % power, since I am still nursing along my stock turbo. Still made about
125-130 KTS, and only took about 90 minutes to make the trip, with a 10 KT
headwind most of the way. It was very nice, after all the little problems I
had, to have a trouble free flight. The rotary engine just signs along, not
missing a beat.
OAT was about 67 degrees, and engines
temperatures ran at 185 on coolant and 180 on the oil, at 4800 RPM’s.
The oil is a digital display that should be very accurate. The coolant is an
analog gauge, so the 185 is more of a guess. The needle was slight above the
180 mark.
I also got to see the first flight of
Paul and Lou’s Lancair with the 20B. I’m sure that one of them
will tell everyone about it.
Steve Brooks
Cozy MKIV N75CZ
Turbo 13B – 47 hours