11/26 RV Reassembled.

The RV-4 was finished assembling this evening. The wheel pants are left off because they are in the process of being refinished.


















Below is an image of the instrument panel while the engine was running.
The instrument panel will be removed and painted in the near future.
The Dynon EMS shows the idle at 1040 rpm and the fuel flow at 6.3 gph.
This seems too high an idle and the fuel flow is way to high for idle. Normally it is around 2 gph at idle. The idle was showing about double the RPM until I doubled the Dynon recommended setting for the tach sensor. The fuel flow K factor was at the recommended setting of 30000. I increased the K factor to 36000 and the fuel flow dropped to 4.6 gph at idle. Still too high.


















I got the digital handheld tach out to compare the rpm but it evidently doesnt work in the dark.

11/25 Reassembly continues...

When I was installing the protective white rubber boot over the battery solenoid, I put a little pressure on the terminal I was forcing the rubber boot over. The battery solenoid energized! I found I could energize it by applying up pressure against the terminal from the battery. Definately bad internally. I got a new solenoid from Aerozona Parts but the new solenoid had two small terminals on the front of it instead of one like I had. No problem, you just hook one wire to 12 VDC and one to ground to energize the relay. I hooked the red Vertical power lead to one of the terminals and then ran a line from the other terminal to ground. When I turned on the power, the Vertical Power switch panel gave me a Battery Contactor failure alarm. I disconnected the power lead and applied power directly from the battery and the contactor energized. After a quick call to Marc at Vertical Power, he told me in a polite way that the Vertical power lead supplies ground to the contactor not 12 VDC as it states in the installation manual so I had wired it backwards. :<( This makes sense as you can use the vertical power lead with either the single or dual post battery contactor. I knew this but had forgotten it and felt embarrased that I didnt consult the installation manual again. I was thinking the red lead meant 12 VDC. After wiring the battery solenoid the correct way (run a jumper from the hot batt terminal to one of the small terminals and install the Vertical Power lead on the other terminal), the battery contactor failure alarm went away. It made me more comfortable with the robustness of the VP setup knowing that even though I had installed the wiring backwards, nothing was damaged or messed up. The VP-100 just notified me of the error and once I wired it correctly, everything was ok again. Below is a picture showing the two post battery solenoid. The yellow wire between the two small posts is a diode that helps prolong the life of the solenoid.

















I spent a couple of hours this morning going thru the dynon EMS setup menus item by item.
Shown below is the Dynon Install setup menu.


















After getting everything mostly programmed, I finished up all of the final little details that needed to be done before the airplane was ready to fly. I had rebuilt the master brake cylinders a couple of weeks ago, but had not added any brake fluid yet. Since the RV-4 brake cylinders are mounted upside down, its a little difficult to get all of the air out of them. I made a pressure bleeder out of a 1/2 gallon pump up sprayer from Ace hardware and some 1/4 tubing.
It took us a long time to get the brakes bled properly. We added the fluid from the bottom of the brake calipers. Next time I am going to try using the pressure bleeder from the top of the master reservoir.
Heres a picture of the Dynon EMS right after first startup. One thing I immediately noticed is that the tach is not working. After thinking about it I realized I had ran a new power lead from VP control unit and had not programmed it yet. So once I profile the power lead correctly in the VP switch panel, the tach should start working. The fuel flow is showing 12.4 gallons an hour. I know that is incorrect for an idle setting so I need to adjust the K factor until the fuel flow is correct.


















I also need to drain my fuel from the tanks and then add a gallon at a time while running the Dynon fuel calibration progarm. The picture below shows the fuel screen.


















Tomorrow I will work on getting the problems fixed that came up during the startup. One other problem that kept me from flying today is that the Plane Power alternator is not charging so I have to figure out what the problem is with it.

11/24 Reassembly continues.

I had to make new supports for the two air controls. The old supports were in the subpanel bulkhead that was removed. I made a little triangular bracket to fit against the new sidepanel that will hopefully be out of the way of my long knees.


















The Dynon manifold pressure sender installs in the engine compartment. The sender looks like an automotive part. It uses weatherpack connectors.
http://www.weatherpack.com
There are little green rubber seals that go around each wire. You are supposed to use a special weatherpack tool to crimp the connectors, but one of my crimpers did a good job on it. The pins have an extra long connector that wraps around the little green rubber seals. Don't drop them as they disappear. I am still missing one.


















Since I am not using the rpm gauge anymore, I don't have to run the long cable from the engine through the firewall to the rpm gauge anymore. However, I need an electrical signal for a source for the Dynon EMS. There are at least two options. Use the wires from the magnetos or install a transducer on the rpm takeoff on the engine. Vans sells a transducer that mounts directly on the rpm takeoff on the engine, but it wouldn't work on mine because of interference from the SD-8 backup alternator. Vans sells a 12 inch extension for it so you can put it in a different location. I got the extension but had a hard time finding a place to mount it as I didn't want to drill more holes in my already cluttered firewall. I ended up attaching it to the engine mount with Adel clamps. I am reconsidering my choice and may change back to driving the Dynon rpm from the magnetos. You have to put a 30K ohm resistor in line with the magneto output to knock the signal down to an acceptable level for the Dynon. This would clean up my engine compartment a little.



















The fuel pressure was also mounted on the engine mount. It uses fast on connectors attach the two wires from the Dynon EMS.


















Since I had removed the 60 amp circuit breaker (on the instrument panel) for the alternator, I had to replace it. Vertical power shows an ANL fuse that mounts between the alternator and the output side of the battery solenoid. I ordered one from http://www.BandC.biz.
We had replaced our 35 amp externally regulated alternator with a Planepower 60 amp internally regulated alternator. We had left our regulator on the firewall shelf. We figured if we were ever out of town and we lost out alternator and could only get an external unit, we could reuse the regulator to get us home. However, its location looked like a good spot for the ANL fuse so I removed it and added it to the pile of discarded parts.


















Here is what the ANL looks like when its connected.


















The next step was to hook up the CHT and EGT sensors to the Dynon EMS harness. The Dynon EMS has a 25 pin lower connector (brown wires in picture below) dedicated to just the CHT and EGT sensors. The harness comes prelabled with the function of each sensor so its a simple matter of matching the color coded wires to the same color wire on the sensors, adding a faston connector and plugging it into the sensor wires.

11/16 Right side cleanup

dI worked on the right side of the aircraft this evening after work. Since Friday is date night, I only spent a few hours on cleanup. I temporarily wrapped up tied off the dynon dual serial ports. I will build a little bracket for them and shorten them up to remove the excess wire in the future.