Battson wrote:

G44 wrote:

A1Skinner wrote:Do you have a firewall mounted Odyssey battery? If yes then the surefly wont work. So then you are stuck with electro air. I prefer the surefly as it's a simpler install.

Why wont Surefly work with Firewall battery?

Kurt

It works fine, that's what I have on my plane, it's just the paperwork doesn't exist for certified aircraft.

Yes that's what I meant. Sorry, poor wording on my part.

JamieG wrote:"All Cessna 180 & 185 models are approved for advanced timing."

That's interesting. It seems to me the biggest attraction of EI is to get the variable timing. Firewall battery restrictions not withstanding. EarthX 1200 would do it.

One thing to know about variable timing - it only kicks in below 25inHg MAP.
Above that pressure, they still have benefits - timing isn't one of them.

Given that fact, they offer maximum benefit to pilots who operate at high altitude or at lower cruise power settings. If you blast around near sea level at full power then the benefit is slightly diminished.

To really get the most out of them, you need to let the plug gaps increase to the maximum your IA is happy with. 0.036 is preferred, from memory, the usual 0.018 gap doesn't deliver the spark energy increases they are capable of.
My IA diligently gapped all my plugs before I remembered to tell him, this year

Hi All-

Just installed a surefly ignition on my C-185 with a IO-550. We did it while the plane was on annual. I test flew it yesterday and after starting perfectly, a perfect runup, and takeoff I had significant RPM drop during climbout, then rough running engine. I isolated the problem to the electronic ignition, it runs fine on the left mag, and rough on the right, after a few minutes it was consistently bad, earlier on it was intermittant.

We landed, took off again with my mechanic and same thing, ran perfectly for a minute or two, then some intermittant roughness, then consistent roughness.

Any ideas? Oh and Surefly is not returning my mechanics calls, he called a few weeks ago with a question, and now we need to troubleshoot this.

Brad

Durango Skywagon wrote:Hi All-

Just installed a surefly ignition on my C-185 with a IO-550. We did it while the plane was on annual. I test flew it yesterday and after starting perfectly, a perfect runup, and takeoff I had significant RPM drop during climbout, then rough running engine. I isolated the problem to the electronic ignition, it runs fine on the left mag, and rough on the right, after a few minutes it was consistently bad, earlier on it was intermittant.

We landed, took off again with my mechanic and same thing, ran perfectly for a minute or two, then some intermittant roughness, then consistent roughness.

Any ideas? Oh and Surefly is not returning my mechanics calls, he called a few weeks ago with a question, and now we need to troubleshoot this.

Brad

You check plugs in use on those leads attached to the electronic unit? One bad plug can really roughen things up.

I just fixed my electro air today. Bad plug wire. Was had to see because it was under the Ferrell nut.
Replaced the wire and all is well
But getting the spring in the right spot is a bit of a pain.
But with one bad plug it ran like crap on the electronic mag

Try running the electronic mag only on the ground at 1000 rpm for 5 minutes then jump
Out with your hand or a infrared thermometer check the exhaust temps or cylinder head temp

What RPM drop do you get when it comes on ?

1. Is there a real world performance or fuel mileage benefit? Longer spark should mean more complete combustion?
2. Hot starts any easier? (IO-520D)
3. What is a typical delta in cost vs overhauling a mag plus labor for conversion? [Surefly]
4. Significant draw in current on electrical system?
5. I'm not big enough to hand prop mine but would it be harder to start if dead battery?

frstnflt wrote:1. Is there a real world performance or fuel mileage benefit? Longer spark should mean more complete combustion?
2. Hot starts any easier? (IO-520D)
3. What is a typical delta in cost vs overhauling a mag plus labor for conversion? [Surefly]
4. Significant draw in current on electrical system?
5. I'm not big enough to hand prop mine but would it be harder to start if dead battery?

I don't have a Surefly, but I do have dual EI on my IO-520D, so take my comments more as generic for EI vs. specific to a particular type of EI (I'm using an SDS ignition system on my Cyclone 185).

1. Yes, but it will be hard to make up the install cost in fuel savings. My home airport is at 5000' MSL, so I'm most often flying in the 6-10k MSL range, so I get more of the benefit of advanced timing; while my advance is user select-able, I have it set up pretty close to what Surefly does: matches Continental's timing above ~25" MP, and peaks around 26 deg advance at reduced MAP settings, which I see at WOT where I am. That is fairly conservative on the advance, so Surefly may go a bit farther at certain settings. Flying LOP, for the same fuel flow as dual mags, I get 2-3 knots better cruise; not a big power increase. Engine was smooth before the swap; engine is still smooth. It is smoother at idle, and will idle at a lower RPM, but that's not really beneficial in flight.
2. No change in ease of starting (cold or hot), with one exception: kick backs. My main motivation for the swap was the dreaded kick-back, broken starter adapter scenario, which I experienced on flight two of my newly installed MT prop. Here's where the SDS may differ, but it needs the prop to spin through a few revolutions before it fires the plugs, and it fires 5 degs after TDC, so no chance of a kick back. This was my primary reason for the change, and am very happy with how it starts now.
3. Don't have Surefly, so I'll defer on this one.
4. About an amp per ignition when running. I already had a dual battery/backup alternator setup, so I wasn't concerned about becoming 100% dependent on electric power.
5. I don't know how Surefly works specifically, but with my system the engine cannot be hand propped since the engine has to make several rotations before firing. This wasn't a concern because since my ignition is electrically dependent, if I have to hand prop, I don't have the reserve power needed to ensure a safe landing should I loose my alternator (unless I ran on the ground long enough to recharge the battery, but I try to avoid that with a dead battery since it is better for the battery to have a more controlled recharge from a completely drained state, or the hand prop requirement is from a starter issue vs. dead battery). Additionally, I built in redundancy with the ability to start the engine on either of my dual batteries.

Sorry a lot of my info won't be a direct comparison coming from experimental, but I'm very happy with the way my 520 runs on EI and again my primary reason was to minimize the risk of a kickback.

Durango Skywagon wrote:Hi All-
<snip>
Any ideas? Oh and Surefly is not returning my mechanics calls, he called a few weeks ago with a question, and now we need to troubleshoot this.

Brad

Respectfully suggest immediately filing a Service Difficulty Report online at https://av-info.faa.gov/sdrx/Query.aspx

Be sure to include the relevant STC number(s), and include the important fact [that] an in-flight issue was encountered. Since SureFly is a relatively new product the FAA's project engineer responsible for oversight will be notified, and SureFly will be contacted...

We got some tech support today, so I'll hold off on the FAA, but nice to know that option is there. Hopefully we can troubleshoot it.

Brad

Please let us know what the problem and fix is since I've been thinking about the Surefly.

I installed a surefly on my pponked 182, have had no issues.

2 observations:
I can go way leaner at altitude (about 70-100 lop) before misfire
I believe the engine runs hotter


The wasted spark is weird: wasn't used to the sound during rich-running operations.

No issues...

Slo

180Marty wrote:Please let us know what the problem and fix is since I've been thinking about the Surefly.

We are moving the ball forward albeit slowly. Surefly sent us a new unit to see what that did. The new unit did the same thing, ran like crap above around 2000 RPM. After testing everything and nothing fixing it Surefly had my mechanic wire the unit only to one of my batteries. My plane is 24 volt, when the surefly is wired as a 12 volt unit to one battery it works perfectly.

My mechanic says he could leave it in that configuration, it makes me a bit uneasy, but when I get off shift on Thursday I'll test it out. Surefly is interested in what might be going on in 24v configuration, they say they have seen the issue in a handful of planes. One of their techs is flying out with an oscilloscope and wants to fly with me to see what the unit is doing.

I'm happy with the tech support, but I've been on the ground for 10 days or so. Maybe it will soon be rainbows and unicorns, but if I could go back in time I might have just stuck with the mags.

Brad

Thanks for the update Brad. I see the input voltage can be 8.5 to 30 for Surefly. I see numerous things that work with a big range of voltage and wonder how that can be. Will be interesting to hear if they can determine if it is something about your plane.

How fares your SureFly ignition system?

My airplane has one of the older "Lasar" electronic ignitions, which is not quite a full on EI.

One thing I've noticed, and is verified in the Lasar paperwork, is that Cylinder Head Temps run hotter than normal, as in ~ 20 to 30 degrees warmer than "normal". At high DA, that means in my installation that I have to back off the climb pitch some for cooling.

Is this true of all the EI's out there? Intuitively, it seems logical, but just curious if others have seen this on other units.

MTV

mtv wrote:My airplane has one of the older "Lasar" electronic ignitions, which is not quite a full on EI.

One thing I've noticed, and is verified in the Lasar paperwork, is that Cylinder Head Temps run hotter than normal, as in ~ 20 to 30 degrees warmer than "normal". At high DA, that means in my installation that I have to back off the climb pitch some for cooling.

Is this true of all the EI's out there? Intuitively, it seems logical, but just curious if others have seen this on other units.

MTV

I too would be interested to know if Surefly or Electroair results in higher CHT’s. I have been contemplating EI but don’t want higher CHT’s as a result. I struggle enough with CHT’s in summer with the cargo pod on.

For systems with the advance feature enabled, the internet sayeth thus:

https://www.danhorton.net/Misc/Nigel%20 ... nce%20.pdf

Durango Skywagon wrote:

180Marty wrote:Please let us know what the problem and fix is since I've been thinking about the Surefly.

We are moving the ball forward albeit slowly. Surefly sent us a new unit to see what that did. The new unit did the same thing, ran like crap above around 2000 RPM. After testing everything and nothing fixing it Surefly had my mechanic wire the unit only to one of my batteries. My plane is 24 volt, when the surefly is wired as a 12 volt unit to one battery it works perfectly.

My mechanic says he could leave it in that configuration, it makes me a bit uneasy, but when I get off shift on Thursday I'll test it out. Surefly is interested in what might be going on in 24v configuration, they say they have seen the issue in a handful of planes. One of their techs is flying out with an oscilloscope and wants to fly with me to see what the unit is doing.

I'm happy with the tech support, but I've been on the ground for 10 days or so. Maybe it will soon be rainbows and unicorns, but if I could go back in time I might have just stuck with the mags.

Brad

Any updates Brad?

I've been hesitant to update, because we are still in process. First of all I'm not sure if I gave the complete background of my my wagon's electrical system. My plane is a 24 volt, and Beegles engineered a firewall battery system with 2 lightweight 12 volt Odyssey batteries in series.

Back in June we installed the Surefly system which involved a new ignition harness, but otherwise did not take long.
Runup and first test flight went to shit on climb out with the motor going from silky smooth to rough and no power at 500 feet AGL, that was fun. I landed with engine running crappy. A second flight with the mechanic pegged the issue solidly with the surefly.

We had good support from Surefly with troubleshooting, but after nothing solved the issue a tech from Surefly came up from Texas.

He was great, and got the unit to operate perfectly but only when it was wired as a 12 volt to only one battery. I am not an electrical engineer but he did lots of diagnosing with an oscillloscope, but left a bit confused the first time.

I flew about 20 hours with the unit operating 12 volts, no problems. Seemed to run hotter, smoother, wider LOP range.

The tech came back and during another series of test run ups, identified that something about my odyssey batteries is causing a voltage spike that seems to bother nothing else besides the electronic ignition.

So in conclusion. I think I am still committed and gonna move forward. I am in too far. But, I wish I had waited until they had worked out the bugs. At this point we have had the cowl on and off like 20 times or so, and my engine has had a solid dozen test runs with problematic timing while trying to figure out the issue. Currently we are still operating on 12 volts, startups are smooth and it runs great. I flew the plane across the country and back with no issues.

But I just did an oil change with oil analysis. The last report was clean and awesome. This time the tech that interpreted the results wondered why the engine seemed to be showing so much wear suddenly. I'm worried that my motor was abused while trouble shooting an electronic ignition system that was supposed to help my motor to run smoother and more efficient.

The Surefly tech is planning on coming back up sometime soon with the goal of wiring the unit to run off 24 volts as designed. We will see.

That's my story, a bit of a cautionary tale.

Brad

I'm thinking about the Surefly and am wondering how everything shaked out Brad?

Thanks....Ross