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will kirkbride

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Everything posted by will kirkbride

  1. I have built a 750. Imported the kit direct from the factory. No problems dealing with them and the support is great. They have a forum with builder resources and back up from the engineers if needed. I can not recommend them enough. There are a LOT of these flying in the US. Spares are delivered within a week or so. The cost of the kit landed here was about 30k. Any more info,I am happy to let you know. Just message me. PS. this was about 5 years ago. Flying for 2 years now. Cheers
  2. Hi Hank. Wade cams are no longer in business but their main man left and formed Clive Cams If you contact Clive on 03 97585977 and ask for the 240 Wade grind for EA81 he will be able to help you. I see you are from Alabama so you would need the Australian prefix before the phone number if you are going to call. I deal with Clive and find him helpful. Message me if you want to know more. Cheers Will
  3. Hi All, I have an EA81 in my Zenith 750. I have completed the first flight and am now doing the 25 hour test flight stage before gaining full registration. My engine is the fuel injected,turbo version without the turbo. It has an SDS computer to control the fuel injectors and ignition timing. The system uses a crankshaft trigger to control the spark and has a coil pack with 4 separate coil leads and hence has no distributor as such. The engine has the custom Wade camshaft and has custom forged pistons and steel con rods which is probably overkill but thats OK with me,better to be overengineered than not. The system uses a waste spark,but as Bushcaddy pointed out,this would probably cause a problem with a carby set up, however the injectors sit in the intake just above the intake valve and my engine revs to 5500 cleanly with no problems. I would not recomend installing this engine if you dont have a good grasp of the mechanics of it all as it takes a lot of engineering to get it to work properly. However, it is a sweet running engine when sorted. Mine weighed 92kg also with the redrive, engine mount and oil. Cheers Will
  4. Hi Ray. Just got a phone call from Phill at Argo. He is trying to contact you but your email isn't working. If you are wanting to talk to him, you had better resend or give him a call. Cheers Will
  5. Ray, The rods were standard length. I doubt that making a long rod type engine would be much advantage because of the short stoke of this engine. The ring pack is quite compact as it is and if you want to use available pistons, it would not be a economical option. If you are serious about using this engine, there is a heap of information on the net. I have mine running now and am in the ground testing stage. So far it looks good. I am happy to share any info. Cheers Will
  6. Hi there Ray. The rods were custom made by Phill at ARGO engineering in Morphet. They were the first of these rods to be made for on EA81 as I recall(the standard ones would probably be more that strong enough) but I wanted peace of mind. PM me if you want more details. Cheers Will
  7. I am fitting an EA81 to my project. The research I did last year showed that the only option you have (in Australia anyway) is the Foxcon redrive for the Terrier. Looks like a good unit with a wide belt but hard to tell if it has a lower support bearing or not. Probably best to get on their website or give them a call. Hope this helps.
  8. Hi there. Just my 2 cents. If you have a carb system, like the Jab, there is no return line. You only need a return line in a fuel injected system because it operates differently and at a higher pressure. The typical carb type set up only uses about 3 to 5 pounds of fuel pressure to the carb or carbs. The fuel is only used as the engine runs through its rev range. At low revs it doesn't need as much as at higher revs/power settings it uses more fuel. Try to think of the carb float bowl like the toilet cistern at home (it is the same principle). When the cistern is full, no water flows into the bowl, even though the water pressure in your plumbing is always there. Release the water and the float drops, the valves opens until the cistern is full again. In your carb/ fuel pump/ set up, once the float bowl in the carb is full, the fuel flow stops until the float drops and allows more in. This happens constantly as the engine runs. The fuel pump is set at a low pressure and once this pressure is reached, the fuel pump is idling (the fuel bypasses internally in the pump until the pressure drops again. When it does, the fuel starts flowing to fill the float bowl again). So the amount of fuel passing through your flow meter should not change as long as there are no leaks etc. The boost pump in this set up is also low pressure, so that it doesn't overcome the float valve pressure setting or the engine driven fuel pump setting. In an injected engine, the fuel is delivered at around 38 to 43 pounds,usually to a fuel rail. The injectors are attatched to this rail and the amount of fuel allowed into the engine is determined by engine load through either a vacumn arrangement on the older systems or by electonics as in the new type of system. The fuel pressure is controlled by a pressure regulator at the end of the fuel rail and the excess fuel is sent back to the fuel tank. This is why the injected type engines MUST have a fuel return line .
  9. Hi. Ian, What you are describing is typical detonation damage. I see it a lot on high performance turbo engine where the boost has been screwed up to gain more horsepower without any other mods being done. The ring lands shatter from the detonation pulse, so I would be looking at the fuel you are using and in my opinion, if you are unable to get AVGAS , I would be adding an octane booster or changing the timing setting to decrease the ammount of ignition advance. The scuffing on your piston, if it runs in 2 lines down the edges of the piston near the gudgeon pin bosses, indicates a piston overheating issue, whereas if it in a fairly constant coverage over the skirt of the piston it usually indicates a lack of lubrication or fuel wash causing the lubrication film to be broken. The usual things that cause detonation are: Compression too high for the octane of the fuel, ignition timing too advanced for the fuel being used ie: fuel mixture too lean or compression too high. If as others have suggested, the Jabiru engines like to run at full throttle to cool the pistons, i would consider going up a jet size or 2 if you cant run at this setting without going above VNE. Hope this helps. Cheers Will
  10. The strip is council owned so no problems landing there. The aero club is unmanned most of the time so I don't know how you will go there. Other than that, the rain does make the strip soggy(it's in the middle of cane country) and watch for the bump about half way up the strip opposite the fuel bowser :big_grin:
  11. http://www.zenith.aero/video/first-flight-australian-stol
  12. i will try to post the video of the flight as well as the info from Alans site.
  13. Alan from Zenair Australia has just flown the factory CH750. It weighs 354kg according to his information,so it would be able to be registered at 544kg I would assume. It has a Rotax 912 and wooden prop.
  14. Thanks for all the replys. Really makes it worthwhile to visit this forum. Now I have lots of time to follow up on all your suggestions via the various manufacturers websites etc. Keep the suggestions comming also about the importance of the antenne wiring etc. Cheers
  15. Does anyone have a preferance for Microair as compared to I-Com for coms in their aircraft.I have to choose in the near future and have used both but would like to hear others likes/dislikes problems or otherwise of these radios so I can make a more informed decision. I will probably fit a transponder also of the same make.Thanks
  16. 750 Zenith Sorry, pressed the wrong key. I am builing a 750 kit at the moment and find it very comprehensive including all the hardware bits and pieces needed to complete the aircraft. I am hoping the 600kg mtow comes in before the first flight, but will probably go through SAAA for a Cof A in case it doesnt happen in time. I visited the factory in Mexico last year and was impressed. Have had no problems with factory back up and information available from existing builders and owners through their Zenith newsletter. Just my 2 cents worth. Hope it flys as good as they say.
  17. Hi again Carl. See you are on the Gold Coast, my home town. I am at my farm in the South Burnett to get away from the holiday crowds. Hope to keep posting when I get back to work on tuesday. The guys from Terrier are a little reluctant to part with info. Helmut is the main man and just loves the EA81. When I spoke to him,he told me he was an electronic engineer or something similar from memory, hence the new finger coil ignition setup he has on the website as an option. If you have a chance to measure the width of the EJ series engines, you will see that they are probably too wide to fit inside the cowl of an ultralight of Jabiru size for example. This is probably why they are used in gyro applications as well as the greater horsepower thing. they are considerably heavier than the EA81 series. I have been finishing off my hanger while up here. Might post a photo later. I should be at the Evans Head flyin on the SAAA stand weather permitting. Say hi if you end up going and I am there. Cheers.
  18. Just wondering what you are going to fit the EA81 engine to? I am not a gyro type, but my understanding is that it takes a fair bit of constant power to keep them airborn. Just an aside to this, I don't know how many EJ series Subaru engines are out there flying but i would not trust these in an aircraft as the cam belt timing set up is too prone to enexpected failure. There was a report of one going down on these forums a few months ago and i was wondering if anyone heard what actually failed on that engine. cheers
  19. Hi all. Happy to see this thread has started some interst. I agree with most of what has been said in the above posts. Too many "experts" give advice based on their experience in a limited field, not counting all the missinformation that gets thrown around in racing circles. In my case, I have spent many hours doing the reserch before deciding to go down this path. I would not recomend it to someone with limited knowledge of engines and their operating systems. Dave. to answer your questions. I am going to fuel inject the engine with a multipoint set up. Engine management system with closed loop O2 sensor and baro compensation. This is fairly easy to set up with the sysems available now. Sensors include ,crank and cam angle,MAP, intake temp ,coolant temp and knock sensor as well as tach. I am setting the compression ratio at 9.5 to 1. I am hoping to get around 100hp at WOT but anything between 80 and 100 will be ok for my aircraft. This is another consideration: what aircraft is the engine going to power. Mine is a STOL and fairly slow cruise so the torque of the engine is being set at around 4000RPM for cruise and the prop set to achieve this.
  20. Sure Carl. The rods cost about $400 each including GST and weight the same as the standard ones believe it or not. They have series 2000 ARP bolts as I was worried about the integrity of the standard ones whilst operating at 4000 plus RPM constantly. The pistons cost about $850 with pins and clips. I am fitting Hastings rings. The pistons are forged and weigh 50 grams less than the standard ones. Have you made a pin puller yet? Easy to make out of an 8mm long bolt by grinding the head to the right shape. If you get stuck, I will send a photo of the one I made. Cheers
  21. Hi. Carl The connecting rods and pistons for this engine are both custom items as getting off the shelf upgraded parts for this engine just doesn't happen. The rods are custom Argo to my spec. and the pistons I am using are JE forged with the narrow rings off the later model EA81. I want to set the compression ratio so I can run on MOGAS with the option of maybe Ethanol mix in the future as who knows how long AVGAS will be available and I believe its only a matter of time before ALL unleaded fuel contains some ethanol. This is one reason why I am going the auto engine route as i have control over how the engine is set up and have the option of tuning it for a different fuel in the future. I hear all the negativity on auto conversions for aircraft and I believe a lot of it to be justified, however, there isn't a whole lot of difference between a Rotax 912 with a reduction gearbox and what I am doing apart from material that the Rotax is constructed from and it being a newer design. They still have there own issues, as nothing mechanical is foolproof or maintenance free. I am not knocking these or any other engines for that matter, its just personal choice. Some of the problems I see from overseas owners of aircraft with these engines is the lack of proper procedures during the rebuild and general lack of knowledge about the importance of certain high stress parts. It is great doing these things on a budget, but you can't cut corners when depending on the engine to be reliable.
  22. EA81 rebuild I will try again with some photos
  23. EA81 rebuild Hi all. Moving my posts to this thread as it is more recent. Some people just like to do things themselves as they like the challange or whatever. I commend Carl for at least having a go. I will add some photos of my rebuild so far including the redrive I am making. Cheers
  24. David. Have had a lot of experience with Subaru engines. Aftermarket parts are still available at reasonable prices. The only part hard to source is the oil pump if you should need a new one. My engine has custom pistons and con rods, however ,standard cast pistons in oversizes are still available. I will be posting new pics as I progress with the rebuild but feel free to ask any specific questions and I will do my best to help. cheers
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