I originally put the factory exhaust that comes with the engine kit on my Velocity. Worked well, but after I had been flying it for awhile and was looking ways to make it go faster, it seemed like this exhaust might not be optimal. The factory exhaust exits out of the cowl normal to the air […]
On the home stretch now…My rebuilt engine is back in the plane and running…sort of. After a bunch of horsing around I found I had two issues. Firstly, when I went to start it the first time, I had a real tough time. After a few days of pulling my hair out, I realized I […]
I’ll try to step through the process as I did it. First, preparation. All the parts that did not go out to ECI for refurb had been inspected, cleaned or replaced. All fasteners were thrown out and new MilSpec hardware was used. A mixture of 50/50 STP/oil was used to coat most moving parts before […]
Here’s what I’ve been waiting for – my engine parts back from ECI! From ECI, I had the cases, crank, rods, cam and lifters refurbed. I also bought a gasket kit from ECI as well as piston pins and con rod bolts/nuts. In addition, I had the fuel servo refurbed by Airflow Performance – they […]
I powder coated the lifter tubes as well. Came out nice.
Well, I thought I might be able to get away with just a top-end rebuild. I gave my cylinders to Don Goyette at Aircraft Cylinder Repair. I got a call a few days later. He said he could rebuild them all, but noted that he saw metal flecks in the piston skirts. I went by […]
Since I have some time, I thought I’d powder coat the intake tubes and valve covers. I had already painted these parts, and had sandblasted and used good quality engine paint on them, but during assembly and testing, they got chipped up. That engine paint came off way too easy. So, I thought I’d powder […]
So, the euphoria of starting my engine and taxiing around was quickly dampened as I found my engine was running poorly and not delivering full power. I determined that there were two issues. Firstly, my LightSpeed electronic ignition system was faulty – the side supplying to spark to cylinders 3/4 was giving out very weak […]
Now that the plane is at the hangar, fully assembled and looking like a real airplane, I’ve been working on the million little things needed to get to first flight. Many little things to do on the engine and cowling. I’m concerned about shielding electrical wires from the exhaust heat, so I made a heat […]
My prop and extension arrived from Catto the other day. Looks great. Fitted it on and realized that I’ll need to trim my cowling a bit to provide clearance for the prop. Also, I need to scoop out a bit of a concave at the 12 and 5 o-clock positions of the cowlings to allow […]