>>>>>>I agree with your endorsement of GAMI injectors. The flying club Mooney turbo 231 6 cylinder got them at a cost of 1K per injector ($6000). And you could cruise at 170Kts at altitude at around 9gph after leaning.
Isssssh - Someone's having you on here, that must have been the budget for the whole fleet. Have a peek on the GAMI site (http://www.gami.com/) TCM /Lyc 6 cyl = $800/set on exchange ($950 turboGami's) Lyc 4 Cyl = $700/set on exchange. I suspect your club Mooney may have received the whole deal - $6k would cover the Gami's and a very nice graphic engine analyzer with parameter settings and alarms on EGT and CHT (all 6); oil temp /press /fuel flow (HP readout) fuel tracking /OAT and obviously - the whole ROP /LOP mixture tracking /processing and indication. It is however not about the 15% plus fuel saving (not that this will hurt)- it is all about taking the motor to TBO without hassles or even a top o/haul. More so, this is about reliability during daily operations. I know of a pair of TIO 470's that went 200 hrs over TBO without any problems, including turbo's or a top. Only hassles I recall related to the exhausts - this was related to the Gami's. My motor (IO-540 K1A5 - 300hp) was a typical midlife Lyc when I bought the bird - I know, I had a look with a boroscope (sp). Fair accumulation of carbon and BB's at and below 65. 300 hrs later it was almost clean inside and all the BB's were over 70. That got my attention. 400 hrs later the motor failed due to a failure in the accessory drive train and the bird was written off. (Nobody hurt) I got to see inside the cylinders - clean as a new engine, very little C, certainly a great deal less than 400 hrs earlier. No burnt vales as the OWT's promised. Clean burning means no un-burnt whatever - keeps the cylinders clear, valves (stems and seats) clear and efficient, cooling works better, plugs last my plugs were still fine after 400 hrs). The next bonus was range - my Cherokee 6 carried 84 gals and sipped away at 10 gph at (typically) 12,500' (my favourite level over Africa) and still cracking 135KTAS - you figure the range with only one take off, it is agonizing (but very handy) The short story is that someone has painstakingly figured out a set of different size nozzles for each of the engine models that they cater for. This is antiquated and crude by modern (auto) standards, but it does mean that we can address the differences in gas flow patterns that cause different amounts of fuel to be delivered to the various cylinders in the traditional old airplane engine. That is why, when you lean an aircraft engine (slowly), it will initially run rough as a first indication. It runs rough simply because each cylinder is receiving a different amount of power (it is getting more /less fuel than its neighbour). A set of GAMI's will iron this out (mostly) - Gami will re-issue you with more accurate nozzles if you have an engine monitor and provide them with specific info on your engine. All of the above is obviously irrelevant to most modern auto engines, their systems are decades ahead and probably have real-time info from each pot telling a processor to change the mixture for almost each stroke. Issssshh Steve J [email protected]
