I purchased Jim Winings F1 about 18 months ago. The decision was driven mostly by his reputation in the community and on the forum. I am sorry I never had the opportunity to meet him. He built a great aircraft. The aircraft was a amazing flying aircraft with none of the Rocket vices others kept warning me about. (Do Rockets have vices?) The aircraft had changed hands twice since Jim before I purchased it and was showing its age in places. The more I flew it the more I realized it probably would be my last aircraft so the decision was made to upgrade the aircraft but try and keep to Jim’s concept of a lightweight aircraft with handling a priority.
The first and heaviest upgrade was the seats. I went with Oregon area and they have been fantastic. Weight gain was however about 15lbs. Cant say enough about the comfort.
We followed that with a basic IFR Dynon HDX panel with a Garmon 175 GPS and kept the Dynon D10A as a backup.
I was very happy with the aircraft at this point but in the back of my mind felt a bit more power would be nice. The engine was a base C4B5 IO540 with a 1000 hours and a slight nagging vibration when run at lower RPM’s. I had mentioned that to Kent Gorton in Atlanta. A few months late he called and said he had a Barrett IO540 that he wanted to sell with 300 hours at a price point that got my attention. It had all the MB bells and whistles and Dyno’d at 310 HP. It was a low time older engine built by Monty himself. After a careful inspection and Kent agreeing to a great price including performing the swap the change was approved.
Dropping the motor in would prove a bit more difficult than expected as we worked around the tight F1 cowl. As expected the Barrett CAI was not going to fit. A decision was made to go with the Raven CAI and their recommended exhaust supplier. (Aircraft Exhaust Systems Specialist). The Setup fit the stock F1 cowl as advertised. Adapting the RSA10 servo to the inlet took a bit of work but Kent came up with a great solution.
At this point and concerned about weight a EarthX battery replaced the existing battery behind the rear baggage area. To try and avoid shifting the CG to far forward we switched to a B&C 40 amp pad mounted alternator. I was concerned how this setup would function with the Amp load but after replacing the initial VR that had infant mortality it’s been great. The hoses were all beyond my comfort age level and replaced by TS flight line hoses. They did their usual great job with fast service.
The weight and balance turned out interesting and I still can’t quite account for the change. The original 2004 weights were 1215 total and 58lbs on the tailwheel. I expected to be around 1225 and about the same on the tail. It came in at 1248 with 78 on the TW. We are going to recheck the weights as it seems odd the CG went aft with the battery swap. I did not expect the alternator shift to have that much impact. We will also look at options to move to newer lights and strobes and get the tail strobe power pack removed when my bank account recovers!
The engine swap was a challenge but the new engine is dialed in and performing great. It is sewing machine smooth and when dialed back to 2200 RPM at cruise is producing great fuel burn numbers. We do need some injector balance to explore LOP. The power appears excellent but since It’s been nothing but really hot hard to make a comparison from last winter. I am looking forward to the fall. Can’t weight for a 30 degree morning with 18 gallons of fuel! Cruise speeds seems about 5 knots faster. We had one pleasant surprise. We expected cooling to be a problem. The original engine struggled in the southern heat and it was difficult to keep the CHT’s below 415 or so in a long climb unless using 140kts and full rich through 5000. Oil temps in the pattern would reach 225 and about 190 cruise. We made no baffling changes and are using the exact same sensor package. Oil is now 180 to 185 in cruise and hard to push it above 205 in extended pattern work. CHT’s stay below 380 and we are leaning much sooner. This is with 90 plus ground temps. It’s been suggested the CAI system is the reason for the lower temps. Not sure on that but not complaining! I will post a link to some pics later.
G
The first and heaviest upgrade was the seats. I went with Oregon area and they have been fantastic. Weight gain was however about 15lbs. Cant say enough about the comfort.
We followed that with a basic IFR Dynon HDX panel with a Garmon 175 GPS and kept the Dynon D10A as a backup.
I was very happy with the aircraft at this point but in the back of my mind felt a bit more power would be nice. The engine was a base C4B5 IO540 with a 1000 hours and a slight nagging vibration when run at lower RPM’s. I had mentioned that to Kent Gorton in Atlanta. A few months late he called and said he had a Barrett IO540 that he wanted to sell with 300 hours at a price point that got my attention. It had all the MB bells and whistles and Dyno’d at 310 HP. It was a low time older engine built by Monty himself. After a careful inspection and Kent agreeing to a great price including performing the swap the change was approved.
Dropping the motor in would prove a bit more difficult than expected as we worked around the tight F1 cowl. As expected the Barrett CAI was not going to fit. A decision was made to go with the Raven CAI and their recommended exhaust supplier. (Aircraft Exhaust Systems Specialist). The Setup fit the stock F1 cowl as advertised. Adapting the RSA10 servo to the inlet took a bit of work but Kent came up with a great solution.
At this point and concerned about weight a EarthX battery replaced the existing battery behind the rear baggage area. To try and avoid shifting the CG to far forward we switched to a B&C 40 amp pad mounted alternator. I was concerned how this setup would function with the Amp load but after replacing the initial VR that had infant mortality it’s been great. The hoses were all beyond my comfort age level and replaced by TS flight line hoses. They did their usual great job with fast service.
The weight and balance turned out interesting and I still can’t quite account for the change. The original 2004 weights were 1215 total and 58lbs on the tailwheel. I expected to be around 1225 and about the same on the tail. It came in at 1248 with 78 on the TW. We are going to recheck the weights as it seems odd the CG went aft with the battery swap. I did not expect the alternator shift to have that much impact. We will also look at options to move to newer lights and strobes and get the tail strobe power pack removed when my bank account recovers!
The engine swap was a challenge but the new engine is dialed in and performing great. It is sewing machine smooth and when dialed back to 2200 RPM at cruise is producing great fuel burn numbers. We do need some injector balance to explore LOP. The power appears excellent but since It’s been nothing but really hot hard to make a comparison from last winter. I am looking forward to the fall. Can’t weight for a 30 degree morning with 18 gallons of fuel! Cruise speeds seems about 5 knots faster. We had one pleasant surprise. We expected cooling to be a problem. The original engine struggled in the southern heat and it was difficult to keep the CHT’s below 415 or so in a long climb unless using 140kts and full rich through 5000. Oil temps in the pattern would reach 225 and about 190 cruise. We made no baffling changes and are using the exact same sensor package. Oil is now 180 to 185 in cruise and hard to push it above 205 in extended pattern work. CHT’s stay below 380 and we are leaning much sooner. This is with 90 plus ground temps. It’s been suggested the CAI system is the reason for the lower temps. Not sure on that but not complaining! I will post a link to some pics later.
G
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