I recently purchased a maule mx7-180a, with a Lycoming 0-360 it’s our first airplane. Anyways It has an electronic ignition running 1 slick mag and 1 surefly, I’m alittle bit hesitant with the electron mag as I know it runs of the battery and the slick does not I’m thinking of possibly changing it out and running two slick I wanted to see what everyone though of them good and bad experiences.

Thank you

Current thinking is 2 ignition systems with different failure mods is safer than 2 ignition systems with similar failure mods.

I think the question you should be asking is if you're going to replace that single Slick mag with a Bendix.

Ya I was going to ask that as well are Bendix better than slick?

I keep thinking I want to try a Surefly so if it's working good I'd keep it. I do have two Bendix mag's that have worked good for me.

Bendix is the way to go. DENNY

I have dual emags on my RV-7a - It has an O-360. From the manufacturer:

"They have a purpose-built electronic ignition, mated with a built-in permanent magnet alternator. E-MAGs automatically shift between the internal alternator and external (aircraft bus) power as needed – no operator action required. With two sources of operating power, E-MAGs have the kind of electrical redundancy that’s so desirable [essential] for aviation applications. A dual E-MAG installation is actually triple redundant, and does not require supplemental emergency power provisions (i.e., no need to keep an old-fashion magneto)."

My understanding is that so long as the prop is spinning at 600rpm, the mags will run themselves. About 400hrs on them and so far, no issues.

Others on here have more mech experience than I so I will defer to them.

jaudette wrote:I have dual emags on my RV-7a - It has an O-360. From the manufacturer:

"They have a purpose-built electronic ignition, mated with a built-in permanent magnet alternator. E-MAGs automatically shift between the internal alternator and external (aircraft bus) power as needed – no operator action required. With two sources of operating power, E-MAGs have the kind of electrical redundancy that’s so desirable [essential] for aviation applications. A dual E-MAG installation is actually triple redundant, and does not require supplemental emergency power provisions (i.e., no need to keep an old-fashion magneto)."

My understanding is that so long as the prop is spinning at 600rpm, the mags will run themselves. About 400hrs on them and so far, no issues.

Others on here have more mech experience than I so I will defer to them.

Surefly mag does not have a permanent magnet setup which would allow it to make its own power like your emags. Instead it is more like a distributer in a car using 12v power and a coil to make spark, if it loses 12 volts it won't work. Guessing if one were to lose their alternator it will still run for several minutes off the ships battery, long enough to find a suitable landing spot in most situations.

The 4 cylinder Surefly draws 600 mA @ 2700 RPM, and the 6 cylinder draws 1.1A @ 2700 RPM. Given that most airplane batteries are in the range of 15-30 Amp Hours, the battery capacity to run the ignition alone (20+ hours of run time likely) exceeds most fuel supplies (5 hours) by a factor of >4X. And you've got another ignition system that doesn't rely on the battery. This doesn't include running the other avionics, but is enough margin for me to consider the Surefly ignition to be a non-factor in an alternator emergency.

Thank you for all the great feed back I really appericiate it, sounds like it’s a good system and I will stick with the current set up I have for now.

Thanks again

Just put a Surefly on my new IO-520. I’m hoping to have it up and running in a week and a half. I’ll post how it goes.

I put the Surefly on my O-360 and left one mag with impulse coupling in place. Both are hot during start. The engine starts like a car now. Love it.
John

Just put a Surefly on my new IO-520. I’m hoping to have it up and running in a week and a half. I’ll post how it goes.

Curious if you have flown yet and thoughts. My Surefly should be delivered today and I ordered a Maggie ignition harness from New Horizons out in California. I think they will start working on making it next week. What did you do for a harness?

Grassstrippilot wrote:Just put a Surefly on my new IO-520. I’m hoping to have it up and running in a week and a half. I’ll post how it goes.

Really curious how you like it Cory. It’s on my wishlist for my 206. Did you do GAMIs as well or did your new engine come with tuned tcm injectors?

To the OP, don’t take the surefly off. I’d leave it just how it is use the money saved for gas.

In case anyone is interested, I was just setting the dip switches on my new Surefly for 22 degrees fixed. I flipped them for on on off on changing a couple but the green light code didn't seem right. I flipped them again thinking one didn't seat or something and when I powered it again got the quick constant flashing. I called headquarters and got a very nice answer. Flip all the dip switches off and then back to the proper "on" and "off" position. Then put power to the timing post seeing the steady green light and rotate shaft if you don't see a light and happen to be on TDC. After that steady green light I went back to the power terminal with 12 volts off my car battery and got the nice short short long short green code flash. I think I was right that I didn't see the correct code initially since I never put power to the timing terminal the first time. Another thing is I read to never have power to both timing and power terminal at the same time. Hoping I get a new harness pretty soon to try this thing out.

180Marty wrote:In case anyone is interested, I was just setting the dip switches on my new Surefly for 22 degrees fixed. I flipped them for on on off on changing a couple but the green light code didn't seem right. I flipped them again thinking one didn't seat or something and when I powered it again got the quick constant flashing. I called headquarters and got a very nice answer. Flip all the dip switches off and then back to the proper "on" and "off" position. Then put power to the timing post seeing the steady green light and rotate shaft if you don't see a light and happen to be on TDC. After that steady green light I went back to the power terminal with 12 volts off my car battery and got the nice short short long short green code flash. I think I was right that I didn't see the correct code initially since I never put power to the timing terminal the first time. Another thing is I read to never have power to both timing and power terminal at the same time. Hoping I get a new harness pretty soon to try this thing out.

Just curious why you are setting it to fixed timing Marty? Why not take advantage of the variable timing?

Just curious why you are setting it to fixed timing Marty? Why not take advantage of the variable timing?

Just thought I'd start out fixed and see how I like it and also think I saw others say their cylinder head temp increased when using the advanced feature. Thought about setting it for 24 fixed but won't. What's interesting, when I had the 470A installed, it was 26 degrees advance compared to my friend's 470J that was set at 22. Both used the same cylinders and pretty much the same engine.

180Marty wrote:...What's interesting, when I had the 470A installed, it was 26 degrees advance compared to my friend's 470J that was set at 22. Both used the same cylinders and pretty much the same engine.

They're all over the place, from the 470 TCDS:
470-A....26 degrees
470-J....20 degrees
470-K,L,R,S....22 degrees
470-U....24 degrees

And as I recall, the C145 in my old C170 was 28 degrees,
and the Lycoming 320 in my old C150/150TD was 25.

The increase in cylinder head temperature is expected and welcomed as a manifestation of higher efficiency. With variable timing, the fire can be lit earlier and burn longer and more completely within the cylinder. For a given power setting, more of the energy is contained in the cylinder and turned into work versus going out the exhaust, but also spends more time conducting that heat into the cylinder, thereby increasing CHT for that power setting. The flip side of that coin is that for a given CHT, less fuel will be burned using the advanced timing, also a good thing.

Higher CHT's are not always welcome! Lycoming developed the "wet head " Cylinders to help with early exhaust valve guide failures due to high CHT's. Float plane and Ski operations have to worry about elevated temps with prolonged high power taxi. If you don't have a 6 cylinder EGT/CHT you don't realize what damage you could be doing.
DENNY

Perhaps a bit hyperbolic on my part to say increased CHTs are welcomed. Certainly not in all cases. My point was to counter the sentiment that the Surefly increases CHTs and it's somehow evil, but rather point out it's the natural and expected result of increased performance in the manifold pressure range when timing is advanced.