N44L IVPT Nearing Finish Line

[Tom Sullivan]

This post displays closing out the seat panel, side close outs and the rear spar covers with access covers to allow access to the spar bolts for torque checks during Condition Inspections without removing the sealed cover.

We have access covers in the floor pan for maintenance AND the outflow valve bucket is installed with a gasket and nut plates so the entire bucket can be removed during maintenance. That gives us access to a lot of components in that area not accessible if bonded in per the build manual.

Finally, we had to open up the front edge of the wing fairings to provide room for the TKS lines coming out of the wing into the fairing. We made Styrofoam molds and applied 4 bid radius transitions. All bodywork on additional work required as a result of TKS panel installations was done and ready for primer.

[Tom Sullivan]

All rework areas were primed and transition lines from taped areas to primed areas were wet sanded out with 600 grit, then 1000 grit sandpaper.

[Tom Sullivan]

I posted a couple of interesting videos on the Lancair Builders Facebook group page.

[Ryan Riley]

Tom, you weren't kidding about the 90% finished, 50% to go. Wow! Ya'll are making some great improvements? Since you have the bird apart, any reason ya'll chose to keep the Whelen power supply vs upgrading the exterior lights to LED?

Also, with the CAV system, are you putting in the required FAR stuff so it is a true TKS system? I've never flown that system on a Lancair, and am not that familiar with TKS and experimentals. But my former Mooney Bravo had TKS and I used it twice in the flight levels when I came across unexpected icing. It worked as advertised and I'm glad I had it. It's a great system.

[Tom Sullivan]

Joe elected to leave the Whelen strobe system in for now and address an upgrade once he’s flying. It’s just been such a long build we’re trying to stop running off course and just get it flying.

The TKS System is a complete system. I used mine extensively up in the U.P. and it worked better than any of the certified systems I’ve flown with. I suspect that’s because the panel sizes are smaller than a Mooney or Bonanza yet the pump moves the same amount of fluid.

Tom

[Rock Barchfeld]

Actually Tom,

It took me some time dealing with CAV to determine that they tune the fluid rate to each TKS panel, depending on the installation. I thought I needed more flow to the wing panels, and was concocting some, self improvement, flow resistors to the tails. Talking to CAV I learned that there are capillary restrictors to each panel. Turns out this way, they can use a common "spider" for all aircraft and use these capillary restrictors to manage the flows for each installations. Makes sense to me, and once again I learned to not assume anything.

Rock

[Tom Sullivan]

Thanks Rock. I wasn't aware of that. Having flown behind 4 planes with the system, the most effective one I flew with was on my IVPT (2 Bonanza's, one FIKI and my Mooney Rocket were the others). It seemed to flow more fluid, but then I may be wrong. It for sure was significantly more effective on my IVPT.

Tom

[Tom Sullivan]

Trial Start, (Not "Run" or "Motor"). We had issues on July 13 trying to "Start" because the ITT was inoperative. With the TSLM (Turbine Start Limiting Monitor) it will not start without a functioning ITT, because it can't "monitor" the ITT for a hot start. Hitting the "Start" switch yielded absolutely nothing! After more hours than I care to admit, I found the issue was in the wiring from the firewall to the IIT Probe. If the probe wires are folded back upon themselves to tie up extra wire, they need to have "rounded 180 degree folds" or the tight fold will thin the coating on the solid wire and allow some frequency bleed across the two wires, compromising the the reading of the ITT Gauge. Ohms testing it will find NO SHORT between the wires, and good continuity through both wires. Needless to say, this took some serious troubleshooting to diagnose.

EDIT; We found the ITT went blank again while working on the Torque Sensor mounted on the aft right side of the intake plenum (near the routing of the ITT wires). We wiggled the wires and it came back on line. In a discussion with Jason Smith at Aerotronics on other sensor problems this issue came up and Jason noted Garmin specifically prohibits the use of solid "K" wire for TIT / ITT wiring because it is susceptible to small breaks in the wire. Stranded wire is the only wire approved for Garmin engine wiring on the TIT / ITT. We are ordering the stranded style K wire.

We spun it just long enough to ensure "it would spin" and that we could hear the igniters snapping. Now we just need to diagnose the Torque, Oil Pressure, Fuel Pressure, Fuel Flow for no readings on the VRD-10. Lack of OAT may be because we were not supplied with an OAT Sensor for the VRD-10, just the G3X.

Fuel Pressure, Oil Pressure and OAT work fine on the G3X.

[Tom Sullivan]

Well, we found the issue with the Torque. We had a P51-50 ............. sensor in the system and needed a P51-200 ......... (max pressure being the second of the numbers in the P51 series of SSI sensors and the -50 isn't high enough pressure to measure torque). I had one from my IVPT so we installed it and that fixed the problem.

We also found the oil pressure issue. We had wired it per the wiring diagram, using the red and black wires from the sensor (as we did with the fuel pressure and torque). When grabbing several of my sensors, wanting to use them to verify we didn't have bad sensors, we found "I" had been using the red and WHITE wires off the sensor. Once switching to red and white, the oil pressure came alive in the VRD-10. This was not an Aerotronics issue either. That is the way it shows the wires for all the pressure sensors in the VR Avionics wiring schematics.

Now to find why we can't get fuel pressure, fuel flow, and fuel used. We've tried every wire out of the FP sensor, as well as ohm's checked them all the way back to their respective plugs inside the panel, and found nothing connected improperly or without continuity. This one has me scratching my head.

Tom

[Ryan Riley]

Tom, great progress and I feel your wiring pain! I've been still running down my Dynon/AFS gremlins like reversed trim and a faulty fuel pressure sender (after ohm testing and pinning the associated harness). Hopefully you find the cause shortly.