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I pulled the cowlings this morning, and did a detailed visual inspection - no issues found, other than a small oil leak at a hose fitting. I inspected the spark plugs, and they all looked normal. A bit oily, but that is normal early in the break-in. I removed the fuel injection nozzles, and held each one up to the sky to look through. Three of them looked fine, but the one for #1 cylinder was obviously quite clogged. The orifice in the restrictor fitting was approximately 75% blocked with some sort of debris. I put some acetone in an ultrasonic cleaner and put all the nozzles in there for 45 minutes. Then I blew them out with compressed air and did another visual inspection - they all looked clean.

After lunch, I reassembled everything, changed into my flight suit, and fired it up. The engine ran fine at my normal runup rpm of 1800 rpm, and at 2300 rpm, so I put the engine monitor on the EGT page and taxied onto the runway. The EGTs all looked normal after I advanced to full power, so I continued the take-off. The engine ran completely normally, so I did a one hour break-in flight. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll pull the cowlings for another inspection, and then do another break-in flight.

It felt really, really good to get the aircraft airborne again.

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I finally flew the first flight with the reinstalled engine and new prop late this afternoon.

The flight got off to a bit of a bad start, as an L-39 started coming down the taxi-way just after I climbed in to start. The pilot shut the aircraft down just in front of me, as it was clear that he couldn’t get by. I started up, then moved off the taxi-way in front of a hangar, hoping he would start back up and taxi on by. But, instead, the two occupants climbed out and walked away to get their tug, while I waited, impatiently. Finally they pulled the L-39 out of the way, and I taxied to the ramp for my run-up.

The flight iteself was a very short flight - just one circuit, as it was clear that I had a problem with the engine. The engine ran fine at low power, but it wasn’t running happily at high power. By the time I figured out something wasn’t right, I decided it was a bit late to abort the take-off, so I continued the take-off and pulled up onto downwind. On downwind, I cycled through all the pages on the EIS 4000 engine information system to see what it had to tell me. The EGT for #1 cylinder was very low, and it stayed that way as I cycled the two ignition systems OFF and ON. If I reduced the power, the EGT for that cylinder jumped up, but seemed to be a bit higher than the other three. I think that maybe that fuel injector nozzle is partially clogged. I’ll troubleshoot that tomorrow morning, using Lycoming Service Information 1275 and Service Information 1414 as guides.

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When I was out at the hangar this weekend, there was a lot of activity at the hangar next door. The owner had decided to take advantage of the warm weather to either fly or run up as many of his aircraft as possible. He has quite the collection in there - Challenger ultralight, Citabria, Pitts S-2, 450 Stearman, Ryan PT-22, Cessna 421, Beech 18, clip-wing Harvard with a geared engine and an L-39 (which is still waiting for all the proper paperwork so it can fly). Plus a very fast boat, with almost as much horsepower as all the aircraft combined.

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I got back out to the hangar on Saturday, and finished off 99.99% of the engine reinstallation. I had Dale, a very experienced builder, aircraft maintenance engineer, and retired official amateur-built aircraft inspector inspect things for me. There was no regulatory requirement for this inspection, but it was the smart thing to do, as I have had pretty much everything ahead of the firewall off and then back on. He found a short list of things, none of which would likely have caused an accident, but several of which would have eventually caused me some maintenance problems. Some of the problems had been there since day one, and had been missed by a whole bunch of people.

I took today off work, and spent the day at the hangar. First, I juggled the order of aircraft in the hangar to move the RV-8 from the back corner to a spot next to the door. I had planned to do this next weekend, but the weather forecast was for a lot of freezing rain this afternoon, which would leave a big sheet of ice on the ramp, and make it hard to push the two Mooneys outside so I could get the RV-8 in front. So I did the job this morning. In the end, the weather guys were completely wrong, and there was only about 60 seconds of freezing rain after lunch, rather than the 2 to 4 mm of ice they had predicted.

I fixed the last of the snags that Dale had found, then attacked the prop mounting. The MT prop has the same style of nuts attached to studs by roll pins as the Hartzell, and it was just as fiddly to mount. I had it mounted, torqued and safetied by noon.

After lunch, I installed the spinner, and then put the cowling on to see how the spinner matched the cowling. I didn’t bother putting the upper cowl pins in, as I would be taking if off immediately. I found that the spinner was exactly the correct length and diameter - MT had custom made it to my specs. The gap between the spinner and cowling is about 1/32” more than it was before, which is what I wanted.

I adjusted the alternator belt tension, checked the ignition timing, and installed the spark plugs. Next time I go to the hangar, I will do a quick engine run, then drain the fuel and do another weight and balance. I’ll need to track down someone to stand fire guard and look for leaks during the engine run.

The aircraft looks quite different with the three bladed prop. I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs with this prop.

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If anyone is interested in a very nice, highly detailed RV-8 cutaway drawing, Tom Johnson will produce one, once he has 300 orders. You can see examples of his work here and here. Details of the various sizes and prices (as written by Tom here):

So here’s the clincher: To commit to this project, will require:

  1. Cold start priming in the form of at least 300 orders—with a 50% retainer up front.

  2. I will bill the retainer through PayPal once the required number of orders is reached.

  3. Once all retainers have been received, I will schedule in the project, which will take approximately 8 weeks to complete.

If the retainer is met by February 14, the project could be done by Sun & Fun ‘09.

Available prints and pricing:

18” X 24” on archival paper……………………………………… …$45.00 +S/H**

24” X 36” on archival paper……………………………………… …$65.00 +S/H**

Fine-art 24” X 36” limited edition of 100 giclee prints……….$200.00 + S/H*

Custom prints: an exclusive cutaway of your personal aircraft with your paint scheme and specific details. By quote only, the price will be determined by the complexity of paint scheme and level of detail desired. A 50% deposit will be required on these special projects to secure a position in the queue. They will be scheduled in the order received after completion of the original model 8. Custom cutaways generally range between $500 - $1500. I have done some of these works for Pitts Model 12 customers and they have been extremely pleased with the final result.

*a giclee is digital print that is the highest quality reproduction available. These are fine-art prints produced on museum quality acid-free paper using non-fading special inks. When framed properly, these prints have non-fading life expectancy of 100 years. These must be printed one at a time at ultra-high resolution for maximum detail. They take about 1 hour each to print and are dazzling.

**Shipping and handling includes actual shipping charge and packing tube. Within the US this is $15.00. Overseas rates vary. (Inquire for rates)

Artwork is always copywrited with all rights retained by TJTechArt, Inc.

I look forward to starting this exciting project.

To order, send an e-mail to Tom at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (order info).

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It was pretty cold for the early part of last week, and we had a major snow storm on Wednesday, so I didn’t get much work done on the aircraft. I had hoped to get out to the hangar all day on Thursday, but I wasn’t sure how much snow was on the taxiways. I eventually found out that they had only received about five inches of snow, quite a bit less than we got at home. At lunch time I headed to the airport, and managed to get down to the hangar. I also spent most of Sunday there, and today. Progress has been slow, but steady. I am almost through all the details of the engine installation, and then will work on the new prop and spinner.