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