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Reply-To: <cozy4pilot@gmail.com>
From: "Steve Brooks" <cozy4pilot@gmail.com>
To: <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Hard starting - the saga continues
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 18:58:34 -0500
Message-ID: <DLEMJBMGBBMNJKHLCIIBCEIHCMAA.cozy4pilot@gmail.com>
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I spent about 4 hours today, at the airport, trying to fin a solution to my
engine hard starting issue.
I went there with two fully charged batteries.  I verified power leaving the
breakers to the coils and the injectors.  I also replaced three of the slide
on connectors, because they seemed a little looser fitting than most of the
others.  I also verified that the cold start  lead was not grounded.
Measuring it with an ohm meter at the EC-2 connector, I could see the
transition of the switch.  It changed from sever thousand ohms off, to less
than one ohm with the cold start switch on.

Came time to crank the engine, and I had the same issue.  It wouldn't start.
I did, however, only have the fuel pump on for a few seconds, because I
assumed that I was going to flood the engine.  After it failed to start, I
pulled one of the spark plugs. The plug was dry.  Seeing that it wasn't
flooded, I decided to verify ignition on each coil.  I pulled one plug on e
each rotor, and hooked up a spark plug to each of the 2 leads.  Cranking the
engine (which spins really well with 2 spark plugs removed) I had good spark
on the front rotor, but the rear rotor plug seemed to spark a couple of
times initially, but then did not spark on several engine revolutions.
Repeated the test for the other two coils, with the same result.

Even though the spark seemed to be not up to snuff, I decided to try to
start the engine again.  After replacing the plugs, I hit the primer 3
times, and cranked the engine.  It fired up after a few revolutions, but was
only running on one rotor.  I turned the cold start switch off, and the
other rotor fired up as well.  I ran the engine at about 2800 RPM's for
several minutes.  I tried both A and B controllers.  Each seemed to run
about the same.  Since I had adjusted the mixture the last time, I retuned
the  A controller at several MAP locations to get the desired mixture.
Running it at higher per levels, however caused the mixture to bottom out at
about 30 MAP.  I didn't try a higher power level, since I was still sitting
close to other aircraft, and still tied down.

At this point, I decided to take Ed's suggestion and verify power to the
injectors.  To do this, I had to unbolt the fuel rail, and slide it out with
the injectors to get to the connectors.  I removed the retaining clip (RC
Engineering injectors) and verified that I do indeed have power to all four
injectors.  I also verified using the second battery, that I get a click on
each injector, when applying power.  Unfortunately, while re assembling the
fuel rail, I have an seal leaking when I turn on the fuel pump.  I had to
order some new seals, and that ended the testing for today.

My next steps at this point, are to get the seals and fix the fuel leak.
And also find my fuel pressure gauge and hook it up, so I can see what the
fuel pressure is doing.  

The only thing I'm confused about is the intermittent spark on the rear
rotor that I observed, yet once it started, it ran fairly well up to 30 MAP.


Steve Brooks
 

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