Turbo Commander test

[Bruce Byerly]

  Excuse the click bait, couldn't help it.  Tomorrow I'm set to thoroughly wring out a Merlyn turbocharged Shrike prior to its flight across the pacific. The "Turbo 290" mod.  Anyone have one?

[Jeff Johnson]

Let me know how it goes

I?d actually consider a turbo application if I couldn?t sell mine

Happy flying Bruce !!

[ghancock]

Sounds fun.  Check back in and tell us about it.  With Pictures :-)

Glenn

[Bruce Byerly]

Well we got a couple shake down flights in after the double engine swap and other mods but had some JPI harness issues that sent me home early due to other commitments since it will take a couple days to update.  I can certainly see where it would be a benefit hot and high but still look forward to doing the hours of flight testing I was planning.  I?ll see what I can come up with.  Anyone have 601P charts for 8-12,000? ?  Adam?  I?d like to pass that info on to the pilot to see how they work. I really wonder if it can be run lean effectively in cruise. At 6,800+ lbs on a 7,000 lb gross,  I saw about 174 KTAS at 12,500 ISA +16 on 180-200 pph with 22? 2400 rpm but I had some cowl flaps left in as I was doing a GAMI check as first order of business. Was missing a TIT. Pictures don?t seem to want to post from my iPhone these days - says they are too big.

[Steve binnette]

LOP why not?  If you have the GAMIs matched up and individual EGTs it  should work no problem, with cowl flaps closed.

Do You have O2 and any plans to go high?  Sounds like a fun project.

[Bruce Byerly]

LOP why not?  If you have the GAMIs matched up and individual EGTs it  should work no problem, with cowl flaps closed.

Do You have O2 and any plans to go high?  Sounds like a fun project.

Yes I agree Steve but (some!) mechanics look at me like I am an alien when I start talking about enriching TO fuel flows, swapping injectors, and all of the things you need to do to make it work like it?s supposed to.  They?d much prefer a single probe EGT! I have never had to use GAMIs on a 540.  I suppose it can?t hurt. O2?  I was a little light headed at 17,500? - just kidding. 

I suspect it comes back to what?s true with most planes.  The NA versions outrun and outperform the turbos below 10,000.  If 195 knots at FL180 on Oxygen is your thing, turbos are the answer.  I have a turbo kit in Stock so I was hoping to get a good feel for the little nuances.

[Bruce Byerly]

FWIW:

[Steve binnette]

I had GAMIs on my 421 and there is a piece of software that really breaks down  the temps and FF.  It took a little bit to get the data into the spreadsheet correctly, but it was worth doing.  I could easily see that I had one cylinder on my left engine that was out of whack.

So I swapped that Injector with the one that was running the richest.  That brought them all to under 1 gph spread.  Target is under 1/2 gph spread.

As most of us know, and I am kind of refreshing my memory here, the object is to see all cylinders reach peak egt at the same time.

On my left engine one cylinder was hitting peak egt way before the other ones. So I was running say 19gph through that engine just to keep that one cylinder with in limits!  Meanwhile I was feeding the other cylinders more fuel than they needed and just wasting gas,  the other 5 cylinders were way cool and a long way from peak egt.

By swapping the injectors that one hot cylinder lined up with all the other cylinders and I could run say 15gph and have all the cylinders closer to peak egt.

The 421 continental has  tuned injectors and was not supposed to benefit as much from GAMIs.  I found them to be helpful.  Moving the injectors around will not work on all engines.  The tuned injectors made swapping them useful.

I really did not play with it much after I swapped those injectors.  I should have continued to download the data and  I could have sent some of the injectors  back to gami.  They will take your data and fine tune the injectors. That's what you would do on an engine without tuned Injectors.

Your engine will run better ROP or LOP if you have the injectors dialed in, and I think it adds a margin of safety. 

When i first got My 421 the egts would start to rise at full power and not stop.  I installed jpis when I first got the plane and it was evident that if I lost an engine and needed full power for any length of time I would have a over temperature problem to compound my OEI problem.

Adjusting FF at full throttle is something you should make sure is right.  It's easy with a engine monitor.  Have the mechanic adjust then go fly it.

Most people think you shouldn't leave a recip at WOT particularly a turbo.  The 421 had no time limit on full throttle you could go the entire 1600 hrs to TBO at full throttle. 

I am not advocating running WOT for 1600 hrs but you should be able to put full throttle on an engine and have it remain comfortably within limits.

In an emergency being able to set full power and forget about it while you manage other things is what you are shooting for.

[Adam Frisch]

Flew my 601P LOP, but with just EGT meter and over TBO engines, so wasn't too worried if I fried a cylinder. All I can say it did fine during 180hrs of "the big pull", no GAMI, nothing - where I had no idea if one cal was running hot or not. I pulled until I lost about 10kts IAS and it started to run rough, the enriched just slightly. Worked like a charm.

I'll try to dig up some numbers when I get back home end of month. I have a manual somewhere.

[ghancock]

1) https://www.savvyanalysis.com/home  (this site rocks for uploading and analyzing your captured data.)

2) I have over 500 hours logged in my 310Q (non turbo) with GAMI's.  First off, get the data and send it to them.  They'll analyze it and send you replacement nozzles where needed or recommend where to put what.  They are pretty awesome to work with.

3) If you're willing to loose around 10 knots and take a lot of shit from everyone that has never done it, LOP operation is great.  First off, I have taken many a mechanic up with me in my Commander to show how warm the cylinders run ROP and how cool I can run them LOP.  They never believe me and just make the blanket "OH SHIT YOUR GOING TO BURN THEM UP" comments.  I took a course on the whole thing before I even tried it because I was hearing so much negative feed back.

The fact is, every single person to a T that has told me not to do it has never actually done it themselves.  The fact is, every engine runs best at Peak but gets way too hot there.  You can either add in fuel to cool things off, or you can add in air.  Doing the latter starves the system of a bit of power but because you have limited amounts of fuel you can add in and a lot more air you can push through, it just makes since that it runs cooler with the latter.

Here is the only thing I've learned since having the Superchargers and am sure the Turbos are the same.  On an engine without turbos you can pull mixture back to find peak and then pull push to get the side you want to ride on.  On my supercharged engines though, you can't pull to peak slowly.  You have to jerk it on back and find her quick because things heat up a lot quicker.  Once I found mine I noted the fuel flow and now I pull back for fuel flow because it shows up faster.  Once I'm close I can tweak it until I get the temps around 390-400 degrees and ride along.

At ROP I burn around 55-60 GPH and the cylinders run about 445-450 degrees.  At 15,000 that puts me around 195Knots TAS.  At LOP I'm doing around 185knots burning 38GPH and 390 on the temps.  As you know I don't have GAMI's as I'm single port injected but I see similar numbers on the 310.

As you know, I have been going through cylinders but my engines have over 1000 hours on them and all of the cylinders I'm replacing have over 500 hours on them.  From what I hear it is normal to have to replace them at that point anyway and I'm waiting to see how long I can get on mine running LOP the entire time.  I never spoke to Moe but am pretty sure he wasn't running LOP based on how things looked when got the plane.  But time will tell.

Good luck either way,

Glenn

[Huck-Mag]

Glenn,

I think I parked too close to you in Kansas City. I had to replace a cylinder when I returned. :-o

Actually, it was the first cylinder on that engine with 600 hours. It got toasty coming back Sat night. Scope revealed the exhaust valve seat was coming loose, and had a nice green tint on the valve.

Brent

[Jeff Johnson]

Are bad cylinders contagious?

If so im so staying away !!! 

[Bruce Byerly]

I had GAMIs on my 421 and there is a piece of software that really breaks down  the temps and FF.  It took a little bit to get the data into the spreadsheet correctly, but it was worth doing.  I could easily see that I had one cylinder on my left engine that was out of whack.

So I swapped that Injector with the one that was running the richest.  That brought them all to under 1 gph spread.  Target is under 1/2 gph spread.

As most of us know, and I am kind of refreshing my memory here, the object is to see all cylinders reach peak egt at the same time.

On my left engine one cylinder was hitting peak egt way before the other ones. So I was running say 19gph through that engine just to keep that one cylinder with in limits!  Meanwhile I was feeding the other cylinders more fuel than they needed and just wasting gas,  the other 5 cylinders were way cool and a long way from peak egt.

By swapping the injectors that one hot cylinder lined up with all the other cylinders and I could run say 15gph and have all the cylinders closer to peak egt.

The 421 continental has  tuned injectors and was not supposed to benefit as much from GAMIs.  I found them to be helpful.  Moving the injectors around will not work on all engines.  The tuned injectors made swapping them useful.

I really did not play with it much after I swapped those injectors.  I should have continued to download the data and  I could have sent some of the injectors  back to gami.  They will take your data and fine tune the injectors. That's what you would do on an engine without tuned Injectors.

Your engine will run better ROP or LOP if you have the injectors dialed in, and I think it adds a margin of safety. 

When i first got My 421 the egts would start to rise at full power and not stop.  I installed jpis when I first got the plane and it was evident that if I lost an engine and needed full power for any length of time I would have a over temperature problem to compound my OEI problem.

Adjusting FF at full throttle is something you should make sure is right.  It's easy with a engine monitor.  Have the mechanic adjust then go fly it.

Most people think you shouldn't leave a recip at WOT particularly a turbo.  The 421 had no time limit on full throttle you could go the entire 1600 hrs to TBO at full throttle. 

I am not advocating running WOT for 1600 hrs but you should be able to put full throttle on an engine and have it remain comfortably within limits.

In an emergency being able to set full power and forget about it while you manage other things is what you are shooting for.

Agreed. You know how it is when you first get in a new plane?  It takes a couple hours to feel like you have "normal" figured out? Anyway, I simply didn't get a chance to get comfortable and sort out the spread on the engines.  I did take that APS course for giggles and it's worthwhile.  They are all about WOT - with a turbo 550 Continental in a Bonanza anyway. 

[Bruce Byerly]

Flew my 601P LOP, but with just EGT meter and over TBO engines, so wasn't too worried if I fried a cylinder. All I can say it did fine during 180hrs of "the big pull", no GAMI, nothing - where I had no idea if one cal was running hot or not. I pulled until I lost about 10kts IAS and it started to run rough, the enriched just slightly. Worked like a charm.

I'll try to dig up some numbers when I get back home end of month. I have a manual somewhere.

I love this.    Sometimes less is more, trouble is, after you're used to looking at all the data, OCD sets in.  I get it though.

[Bruce Byerly]

1) https://www.savvyanalysis.com/home  (this site rocks for uploading and analyzing your captured data.)

2) I have over 500 hours logged in my 310Q (non turbo) with GAMI's.  First off, get the data and send it to them.  They'll analyze it and send you replacement nozzles where needed or recommend where to put what.  They are pretty awesome to work with.

3) If you're willing to loose around 10 knots and take a lot of shit from everyone that has never done it, LOP operation is great.  First off, I have taken many a mechanic up with me in my Commander to show how warm the cylinders run ROP and how cool I can run them LOP.  They never believe me and just make the blanket "OH SHIT YOUR GOING TO BURN THEM UP" comments.  I took a course on the whole thing before I even tried it because I was hearing so much negative feed back.

The fact is, every single person to a T that has told me not to do it has never actually done it themselves.  The fact is, every engine runs best at Peak but gets way too hot there.  You can either add in fuel to cool things off, or you can add in air.  Doing the latter starves the system of a bit of power but because you have limited amounts of fuel you can add in and a lot more air you can push through, it just makes since that it runs cooler with the latter.

Here is the only thing I've learned since having the Superchargers and am sure the Turbos are the same.  On an engine without turbos you can pull mixture back to find peak and then pull push to get the side you want to ride on.  On my supercharged engines though, you can't pull to peak slowly.  You have to jerk it on back and find her quick because things heat up a lot quicker.  Once I found mine I noted the fuel flow and now I pull back for fuel flow because it shows up faster.  Once I'm close I can tweak it until I get the temps around 390-400 degrees and ride along.

At ROP I burn around 55-60 GPH and the cylinders run about 445-450 degrees.  At 15,000 that puts me around 195Knots TAS.  At LOP I'm doing around 185knots burning 38GPH and 390 on the temps.  As you know I don't have GAMI's as I'm single port injected but I see similar numbers on the 310.

As you know, I have been going through cylinders but my engines have over 1000 hours on them and all of the cylinders I'm replacing have over 500 hours on them.  From what I hear it is normal to have to replace them at that point anyway and I'm waiting to see how long I can get on mine running LOP the entire time.  I never spoke to Moe but am pretty sure he wasn't running LOP based on how things looked when got the plane.  But time will tell.

Good luck either way,

Glenn

My experience with a good running IO540 in the 500 models is that you can pull them back til they smoothly quit and they will run at the book settings for economy or power and stay under 400 CHT.  At least at 8,500 and above, I would run 22-24 gph all day long with 165-175 KTAS on the lean side.  No Gami's required on those engines but I think that's a credit to the engine model. Best piston engine around imho.  I have found that I need good plugs, harnesses, and mags to make it work right.  I used SAAVY software as well - pretty cool stuff.  Sadly the 500S didn't have a data port to export the info so I was taking pics and notes real time.  Not as good.  Add turbo's or supercharger and you have to up your game!