Hi Joe, Those little demons are nasty little guys. On my first KR N886MJ, while I was at 1,000 feet and 13 miles from the airport, the ground wire on my pumps broke. Immediately I had no fuel pressure. Of course I did not find the problem until I was back on the ground. What I did was open the throttle all the way. I had no gravity feed of any kind. The engine kept running at a max rpm of 1600. I could not climb but was able to maintain altitude. Fortunately there was an interstate under me all the way back to the airport if needed. That was one of the most tense times flying 886MJ. Made it back to the airport safely. So, this tells me that the Corvair engine and the Ellison throttle body will suck enough fuel on their own to keep the engine running. You may not be as lucky as I was!!!
Mark Jones (N771MJ) Oldsmar, FL flyk...@gmail.com www.flykr2s.com On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 2:11 PM n357cj via KRnet <krnet@list.krnet.org> wrote: > Hi guys, > I have been working it pretty hard to finish up the original Dr. Dean boat > that I bought from Eric Pitts back in 2014. I still think that I will have > it together and inspected before summer but I keep taking a step back. The > most recent I am sharing and the story goes.... While finishing up panel > work and not having had a battery in or trying to turn the engine over in > probably 8 to 10 months I started playing with switches and just testing to > double check my work. In this plane I have a fuel pump since the new elison > actually likes more pressure than I can get from gravity feed (one of my > favorite sayings is gravity never quits). So I flipped the pump switch > (which all worked great when engine runs were done over a year ago) > Nothing happened except the indicator light came on. Flipped back in forth > a couple time and the pump started to run. Then it worked every time. But > that little piece of doubt had been planted in the back of my head. Over > the next couple weeks while chasing all the new tech in the plane and > programing I would flip the pump on every so often .. a couple hesitations > happened and a little more doubt planted. During one of the sessions of > having the panel turned I I noticed that the indicator for the fuel pump > was very dimly lit. The pump did not work. Now it was worthy of figuring > it out. Traced wires, switches and breakers. checked connections and > voltage and grounds. I found nothing to even consider a install issue. Last > option is bad pump. I bought 2 new in 2016 identical and one has failed > with in all likely hood less than 1 hour total time. > I had only installed a primary fuel pump and set up the system to > gravity feed in the event of pump failure. Now I bought 2 more new pumps > and am rebuilding the fuel system to have 2 pumps in line with free flow in > the off position so that gravity is still a 3rd option. But that little > voice in my head had fuel pump failure as my worst dream and now it > happened before I could even get out of the shop. > Maybe we should be doing a high wing FreeBird design so I could > have a good gravity feed system.... > Joe Horton, > Dr. Deans plane newly registered as N657CJ > > -- > KRnet mailing list > KRnet@list.krnet.org > https://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet >
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