Had the opportunity on Friday to get into the air for a test of the new oil cooler. 

 Lots of traffic  and had to spend a lot of time holding short for takeoff, oil temps remained well within limits, Left bank CHT's got a little warmer than I would like but remained within limits. managed to get about .8 hr of flight and landed to check for potential oil leaks. Found one connection that needed tightening and will check it again on the next flight. Minimum loss of oil.

Today we managed to finish the installation of the new Positech Oil cooler and the new manifold pressure guage as well as re fit the cowl. engine has been tested and no leaks were found. Washed down the engine and fuselage with mineral spirits to remove any residual oil from the previous leak.

During the ground run the manifold pressure guage indicated 12" @ 1000 RPMS and 15" @ 1600 RPMS it will be interesting to see what the indications are at the next takeoff. Aircraft has a fixed…

Had a beautiful day on wednesday 65 degrees and clear skies so opened the hangar and brought out the plane for a short hop after the long winter.

Preflight went normal and I got airborne without a hitch, climbed out and flew for about 45 minutes and CHT temps seemed to be lowering, noted the oil temp seemed to be getting a little hoter than normal so I returned to the field and landed, went into the restraunt for a bowl of soup and when I came out there was oil all over the ground…

I had noted the plug wires as originally run appeared to be blocking airflow into and around the cylinders, so to improve the airflow I changed the location and manner in which the plug wires were run. The photos posted are only a few of those that tell the story of the change and I will try to include more photos as allowed. Take notice of the clear air pathway thru the intake plenums and how the plug wires now are barely visable within the plenum. I also made use of the old plug holes to…

Today after adding an additional 1 1/2" to the lip of the left intake and the air temps at about 55F I had two take offs and landings and about 30 minutes of flight. Although the temps hovered around 340 -355 they were still below max allowable for the 1st time.

Noted that static RPM was over 2500 RPM and takeoffs were quite short, climb out at 80mph and going up FAST! Now that we can operate within temperature tolerances we can start to build some time.

In…

Joe made a suggestion about Zenith builders flying to and attending the 2011 EAA Air Venture as a mass group, I made a suggestion and Joe asked me to do a blog about it so everyone could read it:

I am an 801 builder from Beloit, WI operating out of Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport in Janesville,WI (KJVL) your suggestion sounds good to me and I might suggest that if we wanted to have a mass type fly in the airport in Janesville has plenty of room for us to organize, low fuel…

Today I de-magnatized the down tubes of the cabin frame and the area immediatly in front of where the magnetic compass will sit, after checking the area I found I was successful in the de-magnetising process.

For information purposes to other builders I purchased a small hand held de-magnitizer unit from McMaster-Carr for $84.00 and it only took about 6 minutes to do the job. Word of caution I was careful to keep my distance from my Dynon D10A as it has an internal magnatometer that…

The way things work.....went to shut down the engine after the airshow and it didn't want to stop! Had to pull the throttle all the way closed and pull the choke.

Investigations shows a malfunctioning ignition switch, very intermittent, sometime it will ground out both mags and sometimes only the left mag leaving the right one active. Pulled the switch and made some adjustments, seems to work ok for now but have ordered a new one and will install it as soon as it…

Sorry Guys, I got so excited about finishing I forgot to tell you about the young man in the photos.

This young 4 year old is the son of a contractor who recently did some remodeling for my wife and I, his mom and dad brought him to AirFest 2010 because he is crazy about airplanes, and let me tell you he gets EXCITED!!!!

It has been a long time since I have seen a kid get so excited watching aerobatics and airplanes in general, while he was watching Skip Stewart flop…

Finally finished the long projest on Friday June 28th 2010! Put the prop on and wired it for the last time before flight testing, Not able to do any testing as the Airshow started on Friday also but we will be on display all weekend. Granted I am not as fast as the US Air Force Thunderbirds or the Canadian Snowbirds, I can't flop around the sky like Skip Stewart or make the graceful moves of the Big Red…

Well, here it is Monday and we are finally putting on the finishing touches to the last item in the project, the cowl. Kent took two days while I was away and worked on the air intakes, today we put the finishing fiberglass on the openings. Now all we need is to let the resin harden and we can do the final install.]

Installed the bottom section today and ran the wires to the oil pan heater and the battery maintainer, put the holding…

Well here we are, spring is upon us and we are making progress, the cowling is back from the fiberglass shop and we have fit and installed the camlocks, some we will need to change to a smaller stud, I goofed on the measurement before ordering. left to do now are the two door openings, one for the oil dipstick and the other for the oil pan heater and battery maintainer. flush out and finish the air intakes and the cowl is complete. Have the latest update from Dynon to install, but that is…