Hello all,
I have a quandary with this engine and am hoping to get some
help in solving it.
I have about 60 hours on the engine now and it runs quite
well. Due to the worries related to Fred Moreno’s problem with his engine
and various others I was highly concerned about the safety of operating my L-IVP
with this power plant. To that end I’ve been monitoring it closely and
have been doing frequent oil changes to look for developing problems.
All parameters have been good except there was silicone early
on in the oil (first change was at 5 hours then at about 15, then at 35 hours
and another later on.) and a slight elevation in aluminum. Second oil
change still have the silicon and aluminum was much higher. Also there was
a bit of metal flakes in the filter element – non magnetic. Last oil
change was even higher aluminum and silicon still elevated. The oil filter
element looked like it had glitter applied to it. Blackstone has been
doing the oil analysis. I sent the last filter element to Howard Fenton
(2nd oilpinion in Oklahoma) and he expressed concern and advised to
quit flying until the problem is figured out.
He says the only metal found is aluminum and he’s never seen
or heard of that. Always in his experience there would be some other metal
showing up in excess as well because there isn’t a place in the engine he’s
aware of the aluminum rubs against aluminum.
I discovered after the second oil change that the alternate
air door was not closing completely and that probably explains the
silicon.
I did compression check a couple of days ago and got normal
readings – 80/75 to 77.
I don’t have a plan about how to trouble shoot the origin of
this metal. I notice that cylinder #5 runs hottest egt’s during warmup but
other than that I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary.
Does anyone have a suggestion about how to sleuth out
this problem?
Regards,
John Barrett, CEO
Leading Edge Composites
PO Box 428
Port Hadlock, WA 98339
www.carbinge.com