Now that I hopefully have my strakes mostly
repaired I am able to focus on the engine again. So, in that vain I have
been able to run it the last few days trying to get it tuned properly and
hopefully reliably. We have had some cool weather.....heck, for Houston it
has been downright cold dipping into the mid 40's, thus allowing me to run the
engine at higher power settings for a bit longer. Also, based on
discussions here last week I am modifying my cooling system a bit...I have had
my small hose opening on my rear iron plugged up to this time, but will modify
when my new aluminum expansion tank arrives. Funny, after following rotary
stuff for years I missed this apparent cooling convention.
One issue I am having is that regardless of how
high I push my rpm's it appears that I am only running on the primary
injectors. The EM2 continues to display the asterisk even at WOT.
Also, when I shut down the primaries at high rpm's (well over the staging
point....3000 ish?) the engine dies...actually, it dies whenever I shut the
primaries off but I would expect that at lower rpm's and idle (kinda rough idle
around 1500 rpm, but also kinda expected with a medium street port).
So, to confuse me more in my initial diagnostic I shut off the engine, kill the
fuel pumps and place the EC2 in Mode 1, injector diagnostic. All four
injectors fire away....I shut off the primaries and the secondary's chirp
away. I shut off the secondary's and the primaries still clatter on.
This is what I expected, it just is not doing the same thing when the engine is
actually running. Thoughts?
Also, a second issue, one I was just starting to
try to solve when my strakes became the priority, is that as I approach 6000 rpm
on my EM2 display the indicated rpm starts jumping all over the place....1200,
3543, 3333, 2650, 6314.......randomly. It is doing this even though the
engine is still developing more power, obviously over 6000 rpm...as you can tell
by the sound and the increased power. As I throttle back to about
5900 the indicator starts displaying as expected again. Additional
thoughts?
As always thanks for your consideration and
insights.
Finally, it is kinda kewl to have the "airport
types" stop by to comment on the noise.....music...noise....music....all in the
ear of the listener <g>. Today Gary Hunter, a name well known to
most fast glass guys (he is also the crew chief for Bruce Bohanon's Flying
Tiger) stopped by and said it sounded "strong". Wahoo. Gotta take
the small victories.
Thanks again.
All the best,
Chris Barber
Houston