Tango Lima Lima, as she is now registered, was pulled from the hanger and towed over to the fuel pump. I added 20 litres of fuel to each tank and then pulled it back to the apron in front of the hanger. I followed the instructions of Precision Airmotive’s Eagle ECU specialist, Dennis Anttilla for starting the engine. For the first time in 4 years, it came to life with just a couple of revolutions of the prop. I ran the engine for a few minutes and then shut it down so I could look for oil leaks or what-ever. Sure enough, I had missed tightening down an oil line fitting on the oil cooler. This was quickly remedied and the mess was cleaned up. I fired her up again and then started taxi testing around the ramp area. It sure sounds sweet! I could idle down to 700 rpm and it was still smooth running. The big IO360 with straight pipes is going to make it’s presence known soon.

Ground handling is a lot easier than my previous experience with Mike Seager’s RV6A on a grass strip. Short radius turns are way easy with the castering nose wheel . I have not installed the engine cowlings so I limited the run time on the engine to ensure it didn’t get too warm. Probably not an issue on a cool evening at low power settings, but I’m being overly cautious. I found a few snags that I need to work thru prior to my Final Inspection by the MD-RA. Most concerning is the small fuel weep on the left tank. This weep is coming from the back side of the fuel tank so I will have to remove the tank to find it and fix it. Groan. I had pressure tested both tanks prior to attaching to the wing but I am told this happens. Not looking forward to that task but better now than in the winter months with frozen fingers on cold tools and fittings. There is also the slight odor of 100LL in the cabin when the boost pump is on. I will have to go over all the fuel line fittings one more time to find the leaker.

The Eagle Screen is working really well. Up to now, all data received from the Eagle was static and it was difficult to validate all information was being displayed properly. I have a few points that need tweeking but this is normal stuff when you commission a new system. Data is streaming in from the Dynon and being displayed along with GPS data from a separate Garmin puck. It’s all coming together now. I’ll get some screen dumps posted to the blog in a week or so. I really like trend displays and I have set up a number of fast trends and slower historical trends with averaged and normalized values. This is a good way interpret how your engine is working and identify problems in the early stages.