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Super 8. Documenting an engine overhaul with JB Aircraft
8 years and ~2k hours of flying the Super 8 and its time for an engine overhaul. I have never experienced one of these (sold my RV-6A a few hundred hours before it was ready.)
The engine has been very good to me and its only troubles over the years I have induced. I have become very attached to the reliability and performance of this IO-540. I picked up the motor from a shop in Florida back in the days where 540's were cheap. Certified and yellow tagged with accessories for $17,500. :D Those days are of course over, thank you Vans RV-10. First few hundred hours were on 1LSE and one mag, then ~300 hours when the mag died, I went dual LSE. My typically flight is all in to altitude then LOP 2300RPM to my destination so this engine has spent a vast majority of its time LOP. The other times is flying shows with the team ROP and a also a loafing RPM of 2300. CHT's have been kept below 400 generally unless I get on one of my hard altitude climbs to the FL's and I would generally see low 400's to 410 at worst. I have always felt I have treated the engine with respect. Compressions always in the mid 70s with the occasional mid 60 reading that would come back to mid 70's at the next check. Oil consumption was difficult to measure since I spend much of my time upside down with the neg g's tossing a bit even with the inverted oil. Long flights I would see about 1qt over 6 hours and was consistent over its life. Reaching its 2k hour point, I felt it was time for an overhaul. The engine was not telling me it needed one. I was. The time is right for me during this off season. I can not afford an engine problem March - November. Back in January I met Jimmy Brod (JB) in Sebring Fl at a show. JB and his dad have run an engine shop, JB Aircraft Services, there for decades. After just a few minutes of talking with JB, I decided that if I ever rebuilt my motor, this is the guy I want working on it. A quiet, humble, down to earth pair of father & son team. You all know how we are about our engines. I dont let anyone touch it that I don't trust my life with. And up until now, no one has touched it but me. I routinely take 'leap of faith' risks flying night ops over inhospitable terrain, hours over open water, IFR ops with no outs below. It has got to be reliable day in and day out. So off came the motor with the plan to have JB do the overhaul with mostly ECI parts. I have never gone through this process before. I thought I might document that here and report the findings. Step one. Take lots of pictures so I can get things back to their respective places on reinstall. Step 2. Pull the motor. Time to pull single handed was 3 hours start to finished on pallet. I didnt break any records. This includes taking the time to tag everything. Here is the engine hanging from my bi-fold door ready to back up the pickup truck. Engine hoist is not tall enough to get this into my pickup truck. ![]() Then truck it down to my local Yellow freight terminal to shipping to JB. |
Engine Mount
Next was to assess the engine mount. She has been worked pretty hard over the years. A custom built mount by John Marshall(rest in peace my friend) up in Indianapolis. The mount looked fine, but, you can't see under the paint and powder coating. So I pulled the mount for blasting, magnafluxing, and powdercoating.
Here is a shot of the engine mount with the generic nicks, dings and scrapes from years of maintenance. ![]() I found a local shop to to the blasting, maganaflux, and powder coating for $50. i thought that was a pretty good deal. I also inspected it myself after blasting just to make myself feel good. It was in great shape. A new set of mount bolts and the engine mount is back on with a thumbs up checkout. |
Exhaust Warped
While pulling off the exhaust, I noticed this warpiage located under the heat muff. Hidden for years. My muffs have never been off and I have had no reason to look under them. Hmmm. Whats that?
![]() A quick call to Larry Vetterman... He has seen this before, although rarely. According to Larry, there are 2 cases where this is seen. 1. A wrapped exhaust, or ceramic coated exhaust. I have neither of these. 2. A muff exit blocked where the heat cant get away, either from a scat tube collapse or FW valve that does not dump overboard. Well I have never had either of those. :confused: Either way, it is what it is. A tap with a punch to check wall thickness in the warpage area and Im satisfied that the warpage does not pose any risk so Im leaving it as is. Amazingly, the rest of the exhaust of completely great. I have never had a crack, support arm break, or anything of that nature in its years of service. Im cleaning it up and putting her back on. |
Mike
I believe that in the certified world the heat muffs have to be removed at least once a year to check for leaks that could come from an exhaust pipe issue and thus get in the cabin air. As long as I have flown rockets I remove my heat muff in the spring when it warms up and then put it on again in the fall if I plan on flying in the winter. Even at altitude there are rare times in the summer when you really need cabin heat, a sweat shirt will usually do the trick. This has the added benefit of using that 2" of cabin heat air for engine cooling. Usually this air is just run through the heat muff and then dumped in the lower cowling; more heat added! I had an exhaust pipe fail once, just aft of the ball joint and it sure gets your attention. By removing the heat muff in the summer it gives you two times a year to really look at this critical area of the exhaust system. I have about 800 hours on my 540 and I sure hope that it makes it the full 2000 hours. I love these engines. |
This is gonna be a great thread-----------thanks Mike:D
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Inside the valve cover
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Below is a picture of inside one of the valve covers. JB has mentioned before that he is not a fan of LOP operations and will be very interested in getting inside my motor given all the LOP hours it has. ![]() |
Those pesky smoke injectors
Some of this will just be me babbling away at different finds as a result of doing an engine overhaul. One of those pesky items us 'smokers' have to deal with is the injectors. They are not the most reliable things. They tend to clog up, require cleaning, and can be a maintenance nuisance. My smoke system is pretty much homebuilt. I have a ~13gal wet wing smoke tank in my left wing under the wing walk area. A smoke pump and filter in the fuse tail area (Anything portable in a super 8 goes in the tail!) and of course the injectors. No valves for flow rate. What I found was my flow rate was about right, given the distance traveled, and the S8 developing a bit more heat. After a few hundred hours of a smoke injector set of tiny orifices being clogged, I just drilled the end of the injector out with an 1/8" bit. With my 2 injectors this seemed to flow about the right amount and never left me being "THAT GUY" with weak smoke on film. Over the years I have watched the SS injectors deteriorate to the point that that are now 1/3 the length they started. I never particularly cared. I pump all the oil in my system would flow and excess unburned oil,..... well only my slot pilot cares. Here are the injectors after being in the exhaust for all these years. I think they have some service life left dont you?:rolleyes:
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Powder coat
Mike,
Just a thought about your mount. Cracks can hide under the powder coat and not be seen. With your mission, painting it so you can get a proper look at the joints may be in your best interest. |
Hi Mike
Great thread, I look forward to following your progress. Did Larry V suggest a routine removal of the heat muff at annual cond. insp. to monitor the exhaust? (a pain but...)
Blue skies my friend |
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Am I the only one who's (slightly warped) brain throws the suffix "weld" onto the thread title???
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Heater Muff
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I have had no reason to look under them. Hmmm. Whats that?Good luck with the engine O/H :) Mike |
Mike,
The easiest stuff to remove the powder coat is Permatex Gasket Remover. Spray it on and let it set for ten minutes and the powder coat will wipe off with a paper towel. It will reduce the time from trying to get it all off with glass beads. Jim |
removing powdercoat
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Thanks! |
great thread. just curious what other overhaul or replacement items are on your list[ hoses, wires, ect].
i dont pull my heat muff but i have a co detector that is VERY sensitive. i feel these exhaust systems are as bullet proof as they come. |
I don't replace any wires that don't show signs of needing it. As for hoses, all my hoses are nearly new thanks to Tom at TS Flightlines.
Do to my activity of formation (throttle never stops moving), throttle cables seem to last ~400 hours at best. Ill be replacing that which has 300 on it. They are such a bear to replace, easiest to replace now with the engine off. Plus I managed to do a complete melt down of my throttle cable during a troubleshoot of my amp meter. Had a charger hooked up to my hanging wires from the alternator. Managed to short across the throttle cable and it melted the cable enough that it doesn't move now. ARGH. :mad: Stupid mistake but fortunately it needed replacement anyway. Most of my adel clamps are junk. Oil covered, deteriorating, and nasty looking. AFP fuel servo and bendix flow divider sent to AFP for overhaul and those items have been sent to JB so he can run the engine. |
Interesting post, Kahuna.
Thanks for taking the time to document it. Most of us do not fly as much as you but it is good info to know some things should be replaced. |
New Smoke Injectors
In a previous post I mentioned the smoke injectors completely eaten/worn away as in this picture.
![]() It would seem there has been a change in design from John at SA and these are the new style below. Looks fancier. I am concerned about those little spray nozzles getting clogged up and how Im going to clean them. Plus they are not cheap at $55 each which includes the SS clamps. $125.59 for 2 injector kits shipped to my door. ![]() ![]() |
The heat muff and exhaust pipe underneath it, are something that needs to be inspected every condition inspection. This does not require taking off the through rods and end plates, just take of the hose clamps and slide the shroud off, or open it up enough to take it off. This is very easy to do.
On another related note, the heat muff end plates need to be tight! if they can wiggle around, they will wear a groove in the pipe and if left long enough, can wear a hole through the pipe. We have had to replace a number of pipes over the years because of this. Clint Busenitz /Vetterman Exhaust |
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But hey! It's the other Mike's thread, so he can title it anything he wants to, as far as I'm concerned. I'm just enjoying reading about it, and I'm glad he's posting his engine overhaul, so we can see what's involved. It's definitely a learning experience. :cool: |
Ignition wires
As I pulled off the ignition wires, I gave them an inspection. They looked ok. A little grease and grime on a few. I own a workhorse, not a beauty queen. I could see one coil to ignition wire connection that showed corrosion and evidence of some arching, hidden by the boot of course. No evidence of any issues on this cylinder.
My top wires have been on since day one. Bottom wires have less. My bottom plug wire lengths are custom lengths. This due to mounting the coils on the engine mount and having each wire, well different lengths. A call to Klaus revealed that his maintenance schedule, now published in a more current doc version online that I had from years ago, says replace these wires at 500hrs or 10 years. I had not ever considered this before. Hmmm. Well he is a pretty smart guy, so I ordered a new set. My average cost on these is $19.25 each. For 12 plugs this stung a little. ![]() Plugs, I ve been going on the cheap for these using the BR8ES plugs at ~$2 each from day one. These have preformed well and last about 200 hours before they are worn and need replacement. I guess 'performed well' is an unknown. Engine runs, plugs fire and are reliable... I have no idea as to performance. Klaus recommended a fancier plug, a IK27 iridium plug that is a... wait for it... $15 each. :eek: Im going to give them a try. Ill have no way of determining any performance difference other than plug life which Ill be able to measure. They will need to last 1500 hours to break even. Thats probably not a reasonable request of any plug. Why wires need replacement? Im sure there is some electrical reason. I have cars with the original plug wires that are 15 years old and 150k miles. I of course have no way to measure any kind of deterioration of these. My mind says that a plug that fires is a plug and wire that are working. I'm sure its more complicated than that. A wires ability to carry this power surely degrades over time. An appreciable amount? I dunno. I don't race. I dont measure my performance to a nat hair. from Klaus "If you cruise at less than full throttle, you might not notice any wire degradation for a long time. At WOT you should see a performance increase when you change wires, even after 300 hrs." Like I said, Klaus is a pretty smart guy and has been doing this for a long time. So a new set of fancy plugs and wires it is. Seems unethical to install age old plug wires onto a new motor. My thinks my motor might protest. :p Note: Picture. The plugs come in the proper packaging. I pulled them out to gap them and prepare for installing into the motor. |
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One expensive item found was damage to the rods. JB believes that the original engine builder did not use the correct socket when installing and put scratches in the face of the rods where the bolts seat. Magnaflux shows stress risers. This puts all rods into the junk category. Argh!:mad: A very expensive problem fixed with new rods. You cant see much in the pictures, but here they are.
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Crankshaft
The crankshaft was serviced by ECI. Flange Cad Plated, crankshaft .003 under on mains, .006 on pins, Shaft runout is less than .001 front to back... "This shaft is better than new!" says JB. This is OUTSTANDING news!:D
![]() ![]() The crank is also Dynamically Spin Balanced. Counterweights Matched Weights. ![]() ![]() |
Kahuna the way you check plug wire condition is to hook an ohmmeter up to them then stretch and twist the wire and see if the resistance changes.
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http://www.lycoming.com/Portals/0/te...od%20Bolts.pdf |
Kahuna---
Have JB send you the rods! They would look cool on a plaque on the wall in your house!!!!! Paper weights, Trophies, etc. Yep, unusual, but cool. Tom:D |
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I run the BR8ES with my P-mags and using the EICommander to monitor them. What I have discovered is that around 100 +/- hours, the EICommnader starts to report some anomalies with these plugs. However, you would never know it by the feel of the engine, performance, or fuel burn. Since I replace my plugs ever condition inspection about 135 hours, I continue to use the cheap ones. I also replace my plug wires every two years, if it needs it or not. When I was racing my Miata, I would replace them every year and I figure that car ran cooler than my ECi O-360. Like you, I have to make my plugs wires. Check with Klaus but Emag mentions that you should have "approximately 180 ohms of resistance per foot of plug wire". That may be one way to test your wires. In addition, I use dielectric grease on my plug wire fittings for no other reason than I figure "it can't hurt". Keep up the posts, it is a great education! |
Yeah Bills idea is better.
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The case has been given an upgrade. Case has a no leak center dowel pressure conversion. The thru bolts will be floating and the seal will be accomplished by O rings around the dowels
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I think this thread needs a countdown readout to the next Team AeroDynamix airshow. ;)
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New Lycoming Cam
A new lycoming cam being installed.
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The Clean room
Here is where the rebuild is taking place. Called the clean room Like being in an operating room. This is the kinda place I want my engine built in.
And here is how the build begins. The crank stands alone. ![]() |
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