IO-360 engine performance mods?/Going to Experimental Cert

[hewilson]

I expect, or hope really, to be in the market for a Skymaster later this year or early next year if I can get insured, a big "if." My wife would be much happier with me in a fixed gear aircraft and so I am thinking of a 336. Is anyone aware of any performance enhancement modifications available for the IO-360? Would appreciate any ideas or input. Thanks.

[skymaster]

hey :

why does your wife have a thing for fixed gear ac. any chance of posting her picture. J

[hewilson]

lol...no, no photo to post...unless I ask real nice and then probably still no...she has a thing about me being a new pilot and trying to go kill myself leaving her to raise the kid...fixed gear = one less thing to go wrong and one less thing to forget

[Richard]

Here's what I'm currently doing on my T337. Installing bybass filtration system. Installing Lightspeed Plasma 3 CDI ignition system. Will let you know the performance gain. Others with these mods claim it is a new plane. Smooth starts and SMOOTH acceleration.

[hewilson]

Great. Looking forward to your results. Be sure to let me know how they work out.

How exactly does the bypass filtration work?

[Richard]

I've been running bypass filters on my diesel trucks and tractors for a few years. The results have been better than expected. I go 25,000 miles between oil changes in diesel trucks and the oil looks almost new when I drain it. All my oil samples have been extremely low on all contamination.

Small 1 pint unit. Weight 4lbs. Samples the oil off the oil pump at 6 quarts per hour. Returns the oil through the oil filler neck. My goal with the filters is to reduce greatly the ash and lead in the oil. Thus reducing wear and carbon build up on my waste gate. Also, bypass elements absorb up to 2 oz of water. Most jet engines have this type of filtration. They just never trickled down to us small engines.

[Kevin McDole]

Richard,

How did you ever get the FAA to go along with the bypass filtration system? I spoke with the Amsoil rep at Oshkosh last year and he sounded pessimistic about ever getting FAA approval.

What's the trick? Which FSDO?

[Richard]

I'm doing this without the blessing of the FAA. Hopefully will get a field approval.

[kevin]

Richard,

I'd suggest you go over what you are going to do with your local inspector before doing it. Could save a lot of pain... You'll have to have the approval to get it through its next annual, and also before you sell the airplane, should you ever decide to do so...

Kevin

[ez_driver]

Wow, Lightspeed Plasma III on a certified aircraft, or have you had your registration changed to the experimental category. Don't get me wrong, I have replaced one mag with an electronic ignition system on my lycoming O-320 for over 350 hrs, (in a Varieze) and the electronic ignition system runs markedly better than the mag. But looking at lightspeed engineering's web site http://www.lightspeedengineering.com , They say on the first page that they make systems for experimental aircraft. I do know that there are probably hundreds if not thousands of these systems running on amateur built experimental aircraft from everything from O-200 continentals to TSIO-520 (Lancair 4's). These are probably well proven just from this track record, but I doubt this would ever persuade the FAA. I just wonder what criteria they would use to field approve them.

[Richard]

Maybe I won't get a field approval. I'm just tired of being put in the box by all the restrictions. Tired of mag trouble. Tired of overpriced parts. Tired of paying hours of labor just to adjust the rear mags. What would be the downside to going experimental?

[stackj]

The biggest downside I can think of is that you will become a "manufacturer" and will always have some responsibilities as to the operation of that aircraft... even after you sell it. You might also find it difficult to sell if you begin making major modifications like that.

[kevin]

In my opinion, going experimental will reduce the number of people who will consider buying your airplane by at least 90%. The reason? People who want to buy experimental aircraft buy (or build) experimental aircraft. And there is an almost non-existant market for twin engine experimental aircraft because (again in my opinion) most experimental aircraft buyer have a higher risk tolorance than certified buyers, and would rather have a very high performance single than a twin. (Twins would take considerably longer to build as well.)

Certified buyers, when faced with a choice between five aircraft, one of which is yours which is experimental and one-of-a-kind, and the others which are normally maintained certified airplanes, well, very few will pick the experimental, except perhaps at a deep price discount.

So, if you go experimental, your aircraft will become difficult to sell at any price, and when you do sell it, it will likely be at a deep discount from its certified value.

As I said, my opinion only.

Kevin

[Richard]

At one point in this planes history is was experimental for some reason. It wasn't clear in the logs. Then they had it re-certified. The mods I'm doing are very simple and easily reversable. Time involved in reverting back to stock is about 1-2 hours.

[ez_driver]

Going to an experimental airworthiness certificate would really reduce your aircrafts utility. The FAA has several definite purposes that it will issue an experimental airworthiness cert for. These are on http://www1.faa.gov/certification/aircraft/ The most popular one is experimental amateur built. It provides the most utility ( once the phase I restrictions are flown off ). However, 51% of the work has to be amateur done. I don't think this would work for your case. The other purposes are research and development and Showing compliance with regulations. From what I understand, the FAA wants a definite flight program/plan prepared and adhered to, thus restricting the utility of the aircraft.

Again, I wonder what would it take to get a field approval for the Lightspeed plasma III. What is wrong with using an electronic ignition system for one mag? The redundancy is still there. Of course there is the Unison Lasar system, but it is not available for Continental engines. But electronic ignition on certified aircraft is not unprecedented.