I did the official sea level to 10,000 ft
climb test today. It took
6:27 from throttle up, to 10k
ft. Not bad, but certainly leaves
room for improvement. The OAT was
92 today, and my max oil temp in climb was 186. The max coolant temp was 213. Full throttle, level, at 10k ft with
the cowl baffle closed was 180 degrees for oil, and 190 degrees for
coolant. Pretty dandy all
around.
I did some
glide tests, and it seems like the engine is not even running at idle. The wideband O2 goes right to 20 AFR,
and stays there, while the engine acts like it’s only firing every now and
then. Turning the mixture knob
all the way up really doesn’t change anything either. Does
everyone else's do this too? Didn’t play with this too much, since the water and
oil temps were plunging to the 120 degree range.
In
the hour I put on the plane, mostly at full throttle, there were no other
problems. The fuel actually transferred, but still erratically, though
that must be due to sloshing in the tanks. Nothing leaked either,
unless you count the couple ounces of oil that I captured from the vent
line. That seems to happen any time I run 7000 rpm for any length of
time, and Tracy said his does it too. At least it's a convenient way to
get rid of the extra oil that accumulates from the premix.
Today's added bonus picture is the single rotor, and RD-1C sitting
on the Kolb frame. The engine and drive are just empties at the moment,
to make them easier to lift up there.
Cheers,
Rusty