Instrument woes and overheating

Well I now have a total of four flights on the scoreboard and one hour on the grand total.  Achieving these milestones has been exactly that too. From the first flight I have been battling sky high temps and Instrument problems. My plan has been to try to get into the air asap after startup. Obviously though with common sense I have carried out all the pre flight checks and run ups and so on but I just haven't dawdled. I have attempted to climb out with moderate power until the temps max out then lower the nose and maintain height or do an ever so slight climb to try to keep the temps under control. Any attempt to speed up for more airflow results in a roasting motor again. On the longest flight of 35 mins or so I was maintaining about 4000 ft and temps were okay at about half throttle. Trying to get to a decent cruise setting sent them upward once more.

The MGL instruments I must say have been the biggest disappointment so far however. On the first flight my ASI was okay. On the second flight it decided to stop working. "Great" I thought, it was reading 70 kts and was stuck on that. I cycled the power to the efis thinking maybe it might just work for me again. Nope, and now it just read 0 kts,,, great.... so I chose not to panic and carried on as usual and made my base and finals approach nice and hot with plenty of wind noise over the canopy. Rounding out and touching down just fine.  I set about finding the issue with the EFIS. I have been over the wiring with a fine tooth comb. Every wire, power,earth and plug has been pulled apart and inspected and tested with my multimeter whist giving a good twist and so on to try and replicate the issue.  I had noticed that the local time had kept needing to be set so figured that the memory battery being flat could somehow contribute to this. I changed the battery and refitted the EFIS. With gentle wiggling of the wiring I had a solid reading for the ASI and thought I must have it sussed. I flew the plane again and YEP no ASI again. Getting really frustrated with this I landed. Bare in mind while I keep losing my ASI and causing stress I seriously don't need I am also battling the overheating issues to top it all off. Quite a recipe for disaster If I don't say so myself. Before this flight I had modified the Cowling inlets and Outlets as Per instructions from Sonex. I had also done the mod to the heads in regard to opening up all the airways around the exhaust ports and in between the 2 cyls on the heads like perhaps others have seen pics of  before.

All these passages have now been opened right up for added airflow. I wish I had taken some photo's of them opened up but I can do that next time I am at the airport.

These pics are a bit of a before and after in regard to the cowling Lip added. It is basically 2" long over the original 1" long and has the tapered sides as well.  On the last flight I did I saw 390 f on three cylinders and the one cylinder still skyrocketing up and over 450 f.  I seriously think I have run over a black cat that was pregnant with thirteen black kittens. The mods certainly have reduced three of the CHT's , I just wish all four had been okay.  I have also been playing around with the baffle seals a little and replaced a section that was in three pieces with a singular piece in the hope the air has not been bypassing the joins. I have also spent some time just trying to work out why 1 x CHT would  be so much different. The sensors all read the same when turned off and warming up. It's just when I get airborne one heats right up.

I am hesitant to modify anything now while I have no Instrument and flying obviously is not going to happen so I now just need to sit on my hands and wait.

I rang the Australian Dealer for MGL and asked how he was progressing with the checking of the ASI and EFIS in general.  It seems highly likely now that it will be heading off to South Africa for a proper test. I honestly wonder what next. I am thankful it is still in Warranty having only bought the whole system around 10 months ago. Let's see what comes of the testing and progress from there. I mostly bought a MGL system as my original one in the Aeropup has performed flawlessly from day one. I fully expected the second system to be the same in terms of reliability but perhaps I was just unlucky.

Well sorry everyone for such a negative update. If I can get on top of these two issues I think it will then be smooth sailing. I am just a little frustrated that's all due to the fact that I have to fly forty hours in one calendar year to finish the test hours off or I have to go through the whole registration process again including all registration and inspections costs so the clock is ticking. Secondly winter is fast approaching and right now almost to the day the best weather for the flying season is upon me. Calm winds, blue skies and no big thermals inland. With the EFIS heading to South Africa most likely I will be grounded for a Month at best guess. Time to twiddle some thumbs.