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Building Integrity
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Date:  11-10-2019
Number of Hours:  1.00
Manual Reference:  Section 2
Brief Description:  A leap in CHT balancing methods

It's 45 deg OAT at 3,500 ft DA doing 190kts TAS and for the first time in this airplane's history, the hottest cylinder in the bunch is #5. Here's how I did it. I've made no less than 5 modifications over the years to the cooling system in an attempt to raise the CHT's on the coolest cylinders #5 and #6. They are at the front lines of airflow and have always been at least 30 deg. cooler than the rest. So last week i tried something nutso.
I removed the plenums, the dams I had installed in them, and the forward cylinder covers and then simply gorilla taped over the entire top and forward side of #5 cylinder. I then left enough of an opening to clear the spark plugs then put her all back together for a test flight.
Right after startup #5 was climbing faster than all the others which had never happened before. I then wanted to make sure I wasn't at redline on takeoff, so I headed straight for the active. On takeoff #5 was at 305 and climbed up to 320 before I leveled off at 3500 DA. In cruise at all power settings it never went above 314, but this was while all the others ran a cool 245-255 or so. Cylinder #6 which was not taped over was running around 225 so we're talking a 75 deg. spread from side to side here. I landed after a 30 minute joyride and took it all apart again.
I plan to now, make a 3 ply Glass version of this cover that will have larger spark plug holes and allow for trimming or "swiss cheese" holes all over to allow a balanced flow of cool air over the cylinder head while bring the temps down to match the rest. I'm beyond thrilled that I can very soon have my 6 CHT's all within 5-10 deg. of each other.
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Cylinder 5 completely blocked

Cylinder 5 completely blocked

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