Diesel engine

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004, Pete Schaefer wrote:

I've watched the Mazda B13 thing closely over the last couple of years.
There are some interesting possibilities there, but none of the good options
look very cheap.

I think mine is a good option, and it is cheap. My 13b has flown over
400 hours in the last five years, and cost less than $2000. My fuel
burn is always less than a Lycoming at same speed/distance. It has
not had one hiccup inflight. I used the standard gearbox in second
gear, and it works fine.


You'll still spend a lot of time wringing the engine out
on the ground before you can gain enough confidence that you've done all
your homework.

This we agree on! Few would be dumb enough to leave mother earth and
wonder if the motor will make good power. In my case, the weather was too
cold to do layups anyway, so I enjoyed the time spent testing my motor.

BTW, I repair turbocharged diesel engined trucks for my living, and often
wonder if a part would be as reliable if it weighed one-tenth of what
the good ones weigh in at. Not likely.

The BSFC of the Mazda wankle can get as good as .42, where the Lycoming
is over .5, and the turbo diesel is best at .36 lbs/hp/hr.

I am aware that most people should avoid trying to craft their own
airplane engine, but if you are so inclined, the Wankle rules!

George Graham
RX-7 Powered Graham-EZ, N4449E
Homepage http://bfn.org/~ca266

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:16:54 -0400, "George A. Graham"
wrote:

The BSFC of the Mazda wankle can get as good as .42, where the Lycoming
is over .5, and the turbo diesel is best at .36 lbs/hp/hr.

I am aware that most people should avoid trying to craft their own
airplane engine, but if you are so inclined, the Wankle rules!

Hey George, good to hear from you. The Lycoming engine can get as low
as .38 BSFC when properly set up. Few pilots seem willing to go there
though as it requires leaning past peak. See John Deakin and "Mixture
Magic" in the AVWeb columns. The GAMI folks demonstrate the above
fuel burn routinely on their test stand. Auto engines tend to be at
..42 as you mention. I think lower BSFC with the big bore aircraft
engines has to do with large pistons and long stroke, I think, not
absolutely sure.

I'm getting set to do the ground runs on my engine and intend to run
it throughout the summer at high power settings. I don't understand
people who just bolt an engine, any engine, to the airframe and then
try to go flying without any test runs.

Corky Scott

wrote:

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 13:16:54 -0400, "George A. Graham"
wrote:

The BSFC of the Mazda wankle can get as good as .42, where the Lycoming
is over .5, and the turbo diesel is best at .36 lbs/hp/hr.

I am aware that most people should avoid trying to craft their own
airplane engine, but if you are so inclined, the Wankle rules!

Hey George, good to hear from you. The Lycoming engine can get as low
as .38 BSFC when properly set up. Few pilots seem willing to go there
though as it requires leaning past peak. See John Deakin and "Mixture
Magic" in the AVWeb columns. The GAMI folks demonstrate the above
fuel burn routinely on their test stand. Auto engines tend to be at
.42 as you mention. I think lower BSFC with the big bore aircraft
engines has to do with large pistons and long stroke, I think, not
absolutely sure.

I'm getting set to do the ground runs on my engine and intend to run
it throughout the summer at high power settings. I don't understand
people who just bolt an engine, any engine, to the airframe and then
try to go flying without any test runs.

Corky Scott

Corky, your engine is liquid cooled, right?
Go for it and have fun.

But air cooled engines should generally _not_ be run static at high
power
for long periods - (ESPECIALLY VW conversions).

Richard
(Just my opinion, I could be wrong...)

wrote:

I'm getting set to do the ground runs on my engine and intend to run
it throughout the summer at high power settings. I don't understand
people who just bolt an engine, any engine, to the airframe and then
try to go flying without any test runs.

Corky Scott

And don't just run it on the ground. You've got to instrument that
baby. Get a bunch of temperature probes and stick one to everything you
can. Add a handful of accelerometers to measure vibration at multiple
points if you can get your hands on them. I've read that the biggest
advances in aviation power during the second world war came about due to
improvements in instrumentation. It makes sense. You won't know what
to strengthen or cool if you don't know what's hot or under harmonic
vibrations.

Someone here mentioned an adjustable strobe light at night to look for
harmonics.


--
http://www.ernest.isa-geek.org/
"Ignorance is mankinds normal state,
alleviated by information and experience."
Veeduber

Jay wrote:

Hi Pete,

What factors dictate the difference between max and continuous rated
power? The main one I can think of is the ability to remove waste
heat. And of course a diesel produces less waste heat per unit HP
than a spark ignition engine.

Regards

"Pete Schaefer" wrote in message news:8JSic.32612$IW1.1418846@attbi_s52...


What's the continuous rated power? Peak power numbers are meaningless for
aircraft.

"Bryan" wrote in message
...


Has anyone been able to find the weight on the VW V10 diesel engine? This
engine produces 550 lb/ft of torque at 2000 rpm and 310 hp at 3750 rpm.
Sounds like a great candidate for aircraft to me.


I always thought the difference between max and continuous rated hp was
its ability to not self destruct at a low or reasonable TT. Lots of
factors come to play here. Example, an engine that is rough at higher
rmp would, from lack of better words, shake it's self apart. You know
the faster it turns the more centrifical force. The harder it rubs the
faster it will ware. Of course heat is a factor also, the faster it
turns, the more fuel you putting through there, the hotter it gets. It
also gets hotter from rubbing harder. If you turn the engine from an
external power source, it will build up heat and the faster you turn it
the hotter and that is with no internal combustion. Now I know that heat
wouldn't ruin an engine, but it adds.

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 wrote:

Hey George, good to hear from you. The Lycoming engine can get as low
as .38 BSFC when properly set up.

Hi Corky. You don't really believe that now, do you?

Those motors burn 8 to 10 gph near the ground - that ain't .38.

I'm getting set to do the ground runs on my engine and intend to run
it throughout the summer at high power settings.

Great! It took me a long time to feel confident about mine, but I
did learn alot, and am very happy with it.

Mounting on a trailer or truck lets you move around the countryside,
so you don't make everyone angry. (Even the airport managers would shoo
me off after a few hours of prop/engine noise).

We wish you well, and hope you can visit us in Florida someday.
We are near the SRQ airport, have a Mustang convertible to loan,
an extra room etc.

George Graham
RX-7 Powered Graham-EZ, N4449E
Homepage http://bfn.org/~ca266

Ernest Christley wrote:

wrote:

I'm getting set to do the ground runs on my engine and intend to run
it throughout the summer at high power settings. I don't understand
people who just bolt an engine, any engine, to the airframe and then
try to go flying without any test runs.

Corky Scott

And don't just run it on the ground. You've got to instrument that
baby. Get a bunch of temperature probes and stick one to everything you
can. Add a handful of accelerometers to measure vibration at multiple
points if you can get your hands on them. I've read that the biggest
advances in aviation power during the second world war came about due to
improvements in instrumentation. It makes sense. You won't know what
to strengthen or cool if you don't know what's hot or under harmonic
vibrations.

Someone here mentioned an adjustable strobe light at night to look for
harmonics.

--
http://www.ernest.isa-geek.org/
"Ignorance is mankinds normal state,
alleviated by information and experience."
Veeduber


Good point. Excellent point, in fact.

My engine is a VW. Not a certified aircraft engine.

Quite a bit less then $1,000,000 has been spent on detailed engineering,
testing, analysis, etc to convert this into a safe aircraft engine.

Even though haven't spent much of that million on engineering, I don't
seem to have much left for instrumentation I suspect the coffee
fund).

Accelerometers struck out - cost, complexity, and I wouldn't know what
to do with them anyway.


One thing I would like to instrument is the carburetor temperature.

Not a permenant gauge on the panel (I have one - but there's no space).
Just a low buck way of monitoring the carb temp in flight for a while to
see whazzappenin and see if pulling the carb heat knob is really doing
anything.


The carb is below the engine (KR2 style intakes manifold from GPAS)
where it is not warmed much from engine heat.

One of these days I want to make new exhaust pipes with a proper
carb heat muff.

But for now, I wonder if the air passing thru the cylinder fins would
be hot enough (too hot enough?) to work well - or not?

Only way to know for sure is to measure it.

Isn't there supposed to be a way to do that with a digital multimeter
and thermosistor, or thermocouple (what)?

Richard


PS: thanks for remembering the harmonics thread, Robert. (:it was fun

I remember thinking(back then) that I wanted to take a real good look
a the engine installation on the new plane for harmonic reactions.

I even asked around and found someone who have an old variable speed
disco strobe for the job.

But the engine wasn't ready to run back then, and I forgot about it.
Until now.

Thanks.

Richard

Heat is usually the big one. How you get rid of it is critical, of course.
Dave Driskoll (DH) can probably tell us all more about this. One of the
things that is really cool about the DeltaHawk engines is that they are
designed to be run continuously at max (pretty sure about this.....Dave, are
you there?). That's a lot of full-time horses.

"Jay" wrote in message
om...
Hi Pete,

What factors dictate the difference between max and continuous rated
power? The main one I can think of is the ability to remove waste
heat. And of course a diesel produces less waste heat per unit HP
than a spark ignition engine.

Pete Schaefer wrote:

Heat is usually the big one. How you get rid of it is critical, of course.
Dave Driskoll (DH) can probably tell us all more about this. One of the
things that is really cool about the DeltaHawk engines is that they are
designed to be run continuously at max (pretty sure about this.....Dave, are
you there?). That's a lot of full-time horses.


That't what it takes for aircraft ops.

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 20:06:46 -0400, "George A. Graham"
wrote:

Mounting on a trailer or truck lets you move around the countryside,
so you don't make everyone angry. (Even the airport managers would shoo
me off after a few hours of prop/engine noise).

I think it actually will fit in the back of my pickup (haven't taken
the time to measure yet), and as you know, we live right next to some
pretty dense woods. I could trundle it up to the logging landing
above us and run it all day without bothering anyone.

My worry is to tie it down REALLY well because I will be using the IVO
prop to generate the load and I'll have to pitch the prop to allow the
engine to make 4,800 rpm, after it's run in a bit. At that rpm, there
will be lots of thrust, don't want that engine and stand leaping off
the truck and wailing into the woods. ;-)

I feel I need to have a hobbs meter and carefully thought out
documentation of the engine runs so that the DAR can see that the
engine has been thoroughly tested. So all the instrumentation that
the engine would normally have in the cockpit, should be there on the
little instrument panel I've attached to the test stand. That means
the EGT guage so I can adjust the mixture and test to see if it will
run smoothly lean of peak. I need to be standing there in the howling
wind taking down readings at regular intervals throughout the testing.

Corky Scott