Today I had my IO-360 run rough at low RPM and quit on short final. Witnesses report seeing black smoke puffing from the exhaust before the engine quit. I was able to roll out and off the runway on a taxiway. Then after a couple of tries the engine restarted and seemed to run like normal, including smooth idle and normal RPM rise on shutdown. I’m asking for hints at where to look for problems.
I was doing a local area flight after some unrelated airframe adjustments. The plane took off fine, climbed and flew at high cruise just fine, but since it was a local flight, I wanted to conserve fuel, and throttle back to 2200 rpm. I overshot my throttle pull back and felt some engine rumbling, so headed back for my home field. Orbited the field at 4000 AGL to troubleshoot, and the engine roughness felt like it would shut off if I got below 1200 RPM, so I kept the plane high on base and final and aimed for a long landing in case it shut off. Well, it did quit and I was high, but forward slipped it (a little faster than flap speed) and landed OK.
I DID NOT try the alternate air (filter blockage), or cycling the ignition (wanted to keep her running). Engine seemed to run a tiny bit smoother with leaning, but not too much leaning.
OAT was warm, but not above 90F. I have an AVSTAR (Bendix standard) injection system with dual PMAGs. About 140 hours on the airframe, and just last week did a 4 hour out/in cross country with no squawks. I pulled the top cowl after flight, but no evidence of a problem. Will pull the lower cowl tomorrow.
Any ideas?
I was doing a local area flight after some unrelated airframe adjustments. The plane took off fine, climbed and flew at high cruise just fine, but since it was a local flight, I wanted to conserve fuel, and throttle back to 2200 rpm. I overshot my throttle pull back and felt some engine rumbling, so headed back for my home field. Orbited the field at 4000 AGL to troubleshoot, and the engine roughness felt like it would shut off if I got below 1200 RPM, so I kept the plane high on base and final and aimed for a long landing in case it shut off. Well, it did quit and I was high, but forward slipped it (a little faster than flap speed) and landed OK.
I DID NOT try the alternate air (filter blockage), or cycling the ignition (wanted to keep her running). Engine seemed to run a tiny bit smoother with leaning, but not too much leaning.
OAT was warm, but not above 90F. I have an AVSTAR (Bendix standard) injection system with dual PMAGs. About 140 hours on the airframe, and just last week did a 4 hour out/in cross country with no squawks. I pulled the top cowl after flight, but no evidence of a problem. Will pull the lower cowl tomorrow.
Any ideas?