LASAR Left Mag Failure
After takeoff, on downwind, my rpm sagged momentarily. It behaved as though there was either a slug of water in the fuel or I had turned off the mags and then back on as quickly as I could. The engine ran smoothly after the initial sag. I returned and landed and did a quick mag check. The left mag was dead. This is a LASAR system.
The only troubleshooting I could think to do without taking the mag off was to check the mag switch with a DVM. It was behaving correctly. I pulled the left mag and was alarmed to see that the shaft was sheared very cleanly at the point where it enters the housing.
I emailed pictures to my engine builder. He said he had never seen a failure like this. His guess was that either the shaft seized in the mag housing and the engine continued to drive the mag and something had to give and that was why the shaft broke or a foreign object caused an interference fit between the drive gear and the driven gear. He then suggested that I contact the Slick representative at Champion Aerospace, who are now the owners of the LASAR system. He assumed that they would probably want to see this.
I contacted the Slick representative. After emailing him the pictures, he called and said he had only seen 3 examples of this kind of failure, all of them on a specific small bore Continental model and had never seen one on a Lycoming. After very lengthy discussions which I won't go into, my take-away impression is that Champion wants to be rid of the LASAR system as soon as possible and has no intention of supporting it in any way, other than to get rid of their remaining inventory at what they acknowledge as exorbitant prices. I believe they are pricing them to prevent further sales except to people that have no choice, for whatever reason. Once the parts are sold, you're on your own.
One aspect that I'm still considering is that of what to replace the ignition with. "Vibration" was posed as a possible culprit for the shearing of the mag shaft by Champion. I was leaning towards E mag/P Mag but as my builder pointed out, if there is a vibration issue (which may or may not be a red herring) then something like the LightSpeed ignition doesn't have anything in the accessory section. He has seen many trouble-free installations of Lightspeeds with high compression pistons and a variety of props. He has also seen many trouble-free installations of the Emag/PMags. I'm still struggling with the replacement decision...
I am upset about the situation, but very satisfied with the help I'm getting from my builder, not so much with Champion. I don't want to name my builder or the Champion representative without their permission.
I felt the community should know of one more LASAR data point.
Thanks for the opportunity to get this off my chest.
Alex: do these photos show the same kind of failure as you experienced?
Jeremy Constant