I recently spoke with the guy who purchased my last RV-6. He called me some time back stating he had issues with the airplane starting. We went through the various items like battery and starting solenoid (all which got replaced). He got 10 years out of a Concorde battery.....!
He still had issues getting the airplane started. It used to fire up on a half of a blade of rotation when it was cold. Now he cranked on it for 15-30 seconds before it lit off. I told him to check his tumbler in the ingnition switch. He replaced that for $12.00. Still no starting. I then told him to disconnect the jumper on the back of the switch that grounds out the right mag so the plane only starts on the impulse mag- 0 degree BTDC. Bang. Fired right up.
He pulls the mags at my recommendation to comply with the 500 hr AD note on the mags and sends them to the repair shop. $650.00 later his mags are back to new. When I called him to see if he got them fixed, he indicated that he did. I asked him what was wrong with the impulse mag. It was shot. The gears were worn down and the bearing was toast! He had been flying around for hours in this condition.......according to the mechanic.
The extra weight of the impulse coupling hanging off the shaft is most likely the problem associated with that mag. There is also some rivets on the coupling to inspect. The right mag was fine but still overhauled.
The jist of this thread is that if you have Slick mags and have not checked your impulse coupling, I would highly suggest you do. Comply with the AD note! You are risking your life and your 80K ariplane on it. All for a few hundred dollars.
Before a bunch of guys chime in here with recommendations of going to electronic ignition I will say this.
They have their little gremlins too. E-mag still recommends a 100hr check on their bearings and shaft for play and wobble. That's a lot of maintenance for not having all these moving parts......
Lightspeed has had their black box issues as well, not to mention that finding all the space to route wiring, breakers, switches and hang black boxes is a chore at best. Put one in on a Rocket........was alot of work....
I don't know about Rose or some of the others so I can't speculate.
Mags have been around for a long time. I don't see them going away in the future. The current cost of the electrionic ignitions and time spent installing them with the current issues they still have don't really amortize out-even with the higher cost of AV gas. I'm not knocking those products, however, we have to compare apples to apples...
Check out the CAFE foundation website. They ran mags against EI and found the mags to be faster. The EI saved on gas.....about .5 gallon an hour. My RV-6 with mags went 214mph at 8K on 9.5gph at 50 dgrees ROP. Not too bad.
If you want economy, I would guess the EI would be a good choice.
Anyways, thread drift there for a moment.......please check your mags out. You just might be suprised.....
I have 4370 and 4373 mags on the RV-6. I have 4370 and 4373 on my current RV-6..
Thanks,
Aden Rich
He still had issues getting the airplane started. It used to fire up on a half of a blade of rotation when it was cold. Now he cranked on it for 15-30 seconds before it lit off. I told him to check his tumbler in the ingnition switch. He replaced that for $12.00. Still no starting. I then told him to disconnect the jumper on the back of the switch that grounds out the right mag so the plane only starts on the impulse mag- 0 degree BTDC. Bang. Fired right up.
He pulls the mags at my recommendation to comply with the 500 hr AD note on the mags and sends them to the repair shop. $650.00 later his mags are back to new. When I called him to see if he got them fixed, he indicated that he did. I asked him what was wrong with the impulse mag. It was shot. The gears were worn down and the bearing was toast! He had been flying around for hours in this condition.......according to the mechanic.
The extra weight of the impulse coupling hanging off the shaft is most likely the problem associated with that mag. There is also some rivets on the coupling to inspect. The right mag was fine but still overhauled.
The jist of this thread is that if you have Slick mags and have not checked your impulse coupling, I would highly suggest you do. Comply with the AD note! You are risking your life and your 80K ariplane on it. All for a few hundred dollars.
Before a bunch of guys chime in here with recommendations of going to electronic ignition I will say this.
They have their little gremlins too. E-mag still recommends a 100hr check on their bearings and shaft for play and wobble. That's a lot of maintenance for not having all these moving parts......
Lightspeed has had their black box issues as well, not to mention that finding all the space to route wiring, breakers, switches and hang black boxes is a chore at best. Put one in on a Rocket........was alot of work....
I don't know about Rose or some of the others so I can't speculate.
Mags have been around for a long time. I don't see them going away in the future. The current cost of the electrionic ignitions and time spent installing them with the current issues they still have don't really amortize out-even with the higher cost of AV gas. I'm not knocking those products, however, we have to compare apples to apples...
Check out the CAFE foundation website. They ran mags against EI and found the mags to be faster. The EI saved on gas.....about .5 gallon an hour. My RV-6 with mags went 214mph at 8K on 9.5gph at 50 dgrees ROP. Not too bad.
If you want economy, I would guess the EI would be a good choice.
Anyways, thread drift there for a moment.......please check your mags out. You just might be suprised.....
I have 4370 and 4373 mags on the RV-6. I have 4370 and 4373 on my current RV-6..
Thanks,
Aden Rich