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prkaye

Well Known Member
The Grand Rapids EIS 4000 appears to be one of the more economical multi-function engine monitors. Looks a little bare-bones on the user interface though... wondering if any users of this could comment on its useability?
 
It may not be the prettiest of things, but this thing does everything I want and more. Operation is pretty straight forward, and setting up all your paramter limits and a few calibrations is easy. Follow the directions the first time or two and its second nature after that. There is a very cool feature to help you spot peak egt and watch how many degrees you are LOP on each cylinder. You can also customize a display page (es?) to show whatever engine paramters you want, although their default overview page is hard to beat

This unit will push the data over to the GRT EFIS for display there if you have one, so you could have the EIS completely hidden behind the panel if you wished. The EFIS takes a couple minutes to boot up though, while the EIS is instantaneous. Its nice to know you have oil pressure right at start up, so I have mine mounted on the panel.

GRT customer service is hard to beat as well

erich
 
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prkaye said:
The Grand Rapids EIS 4000 appears to be one of the more economical multi-function engine monitors. Looks a little bare-bones on the user interface though... wondering if any users of this could comment on its useability?
Click to expand...

I used this system with the Subaru and will continue to use it converting to Lycoming.

The best thing about it, from my perspective, is the parameter warning feature. There is one big red light in the center of the instrument panel and it gets your attention if it comes on. Every parameter limit of the operation in terms of temperatures, pressures, volts, fuel remaining, and rpm are user defined and will activate the light if exceeded. You do not have to be scanning the engine gauges to check for normal ops. This is good. It gives the pilot more time to scan the sky.

The system is a excellent buy for the buck. I like it.

 
I've had one on my Subaru powered BD-5B since 2001, 352 hours and no problems. Ditto on the previous comments above, for the bucks it delivers. However, I prefer the Dynon 180 and 100 in my -9A. Dan.
 
Ditto what the others have said. I guess the theme here is "bang for the buck". Go for the Fuel Flow option, it's worth every penny.

The display looks primitive, but you'll get used to it in an hour or two of flying so it's just not a big deal. I like the "BRL"... aka Big Red Light; if an alarm is tripped the light will flash and the display changes to show the offending parameter. Easy!
 
Ditto the others.
I've had mine for over 800 hours on a Lycoming and now an ECI Titan. No color graphs to dazzle you, just useful numbers. In regards to warning lights to get your attention, mine is set up for 3.
 
Back Mount EIS

If you do purchase one then back mounting it gets the large (ugly?) face plate out of view. I have labeled the buttons on the front since this picture was taken. It is held in by the four black screws. I think that it keeps the panel less crowded and more up to date looking.

The "Do fish get thirsty" comes with the Image Shack upload. I don't see how to get rid of it. It is an active link which will direct you to some annoying :mad: site so ignore it! :)

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I've got an EIS 4000 in my RV-8, and I was quite concerned about the apparently busy, two line LCD display. I decided to also put analog round dial tachometer and MP gauges in my panel, as I considered that they would provide a much better, "at a glance" display of rpm and MP. Well, after flying my aircraft for 17 hours, I find that I never look at the round dial tach and MP gauges. My eye falls right on the rpm and MP fields in the EIS 4000 display.

There are a lot of data items in a small space, but if you press the "Display" button the data items are replaced with labels to help you remember which data item is which. Also, if a parametre goes out of range, the display changes to one that shows that parametre with its label below it, to make it 100% clear which one has caused the warning light to fire.

I agree with the other's comments on the usefulness of the warning light if a parametre goes outside the limits.

The leaning feature is very well done. The fuel flow option works very well.

There are other nicer looking engine monitors, but there are none that come anywhere close to the "bang for your buck" value of the EIS 4000.
 
4000

I was thinking about buying Stien Airs 6.25" faceplate and putting the 4000 in my radio stack since I have room, does this make sense? My main panel is the new GRT 8.4 and the new Garmin 696 in a panel dock. I was originally just going to put the box somewhere behind the panel, but since it is instantaneous, maybe it should be out in front. Thoughts are appreciated. CJ
 
I've been using the EIS 4000 and like the alarm feature of the Hal red warning light.
One downside is having to continual page through the screens to get info.
OW, it's been maintenance free. The big display makes it easy to read.I recommend the fuel low option.
 
While you're on the topic

Quick question. I'm installing dual GRT's and the 4000, but can't find any instructions on interfacing with the Horizon. Stand alone instructions are spelled out. Did I miss it under their wed site documents?
 
What level of detail do you need? A lot of it is in the Horizon manual... It's just one wire from EIS to EFIS.. and then you can set up all the alarms on the EFIS...keep only one alarm on EIS -- low oil pressure. everything else can be set up on the EFIS.. that'd be a very brief overview.. let us know if you need more details..
 
EIS 4000 is great

I have an EIS 4000 in my RV-8 and love it. I have the fuel flow option, which is a good deal. After more than 550 hours, I really like the 4000. The ability to set high and low individual alarms for all parameters is very useful. The EIS 4000 is very well designed. This instrument definitely has the most bang for the buck and I wouldn't use anything else. Tech support has been great.

Dan Miller
 
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