I picked up a new to me really nice RV-6A. Prior owner is elderly and unreachable. It has an O-360-C1A with one Slick 4373 and one Electroair Electronic EIS-1GWR installed in 2015. This is my first experience with electronic ignition. It has been intermittent and during the run up tests today completely not working so we cancelled the flight. Either I’m doing something wrong or there is something seriously wrong with it. I do not want to fly again until it is 100% repaired or replaced with a Slick.
Only checklists with are ones that have another tail number. My first question, what’s the correct procedure for startup? I’ve tried:
1. Master On, Ignition On (yellow labelled IGN switch), start. Starts easy, gauge shows 39 on the advanced timing at 1000 rpm. Run up, Left no drop, Right engine dies, back to both backfire and runs clearly only on the Left Slick.
2. Also tried, Master On, Ignition Off, start. Starts easy, then ignition on, no change. Same run up results.
In both cases, the display that shows the EI timing is 0 or off before hitting the IGN switch, then after hitting the switch seems to go around 38 to 40. So it seems it is at least powering up.
However, this is different than the prior day. Prior day used the first procedure and totally smooth both mags and flew a couple hours no issues. Some bad popping when lowering power in the pattern but otherwise no issues.
The intermittent problem has me not trusting it at all and will not fly until it is sorted out. As this is a new to me airplane, I’m leaning towards pulling out the Electroair and going back to a new Slick just so I can trust it. Please talk some sense into me because I’d love to be flying around in my new to me airplane but need to trust it long term.
Only checklists with are ones that have another tail number. My first question, what’s the correct procedure for startup? I’ve tried:
1. Master On, Ignition On (yellow labelled IGN switch), start. Starts easy, gauge shows 39 on the advanced timing at 1000 rpm. Run up, Left no drop, Right engine dies, back to both backfire and runs clearly only on the Left Slick.
2. Also tried, Master On, Ignition Off, start. Starts easy, then ignition on, no change. Same run up results.
In both cases, the display that shows the EI timing is 0 or off before hitting the IGN switch, then after hitting the switch seems to go around 38 to 40. So it seems it is at least powering up.
However, this is different than the prior day. Prior day used the first procedure and totally smooth both mags and flew a couple hours no issues. Some bad popping when lowering power in the pattern but otherwise no issues.
The intermittent problem has me not trusting it at all and will not fly until it is sorted out. As this is a new to me airplane, I’m leaning towards pulling out the Electroair and going back to a new Slick just so I can trust it. Please talk some sense into me because I’d love to be flying around in my new to me airplane but need to trust it long term.
