Rui

This can be changed by opening up the thermostat and finding a little set screw that limits the travel of the bimetalic temp sensor. I use one of these to keep my epoxy pump box at 105F.

An alternative to sleeves is the strechy part of worn out tube socks. Just cut off the foot part. This way you don't need to use masking tape to seal around the wrists. Also since I only wear a T-shirt when working, they protect my forearms from the occasional epoxy drips.

Would placing the canard lower than the main wing increase the efficiency of the system?

My experience with the MD-RA has been that the admin sucks (3 consecutive scheduling snafus causing a 3 month wait for my first inspection), but the inspector was great (a homebuilder, aircraft mechanic, AND Westjet pilot). My only small complaint about him is that he wasn't as familiar with composite construction as I thought he should be. I hear that MANY other builders have had similar experiences with the admin. My advice is to keep on them and call back at least every week if you are waiting for them to set up and inspection.

Send a message to Flyclassic@aol.com and ask for the plans. They are 50 $US (I just sent away for mine).

Speaking of turbo oil returns. A while ago I owned a turbo Chrysler LeBaron that had a leak from the oil return gasket. I tried fixing this a couple of times, but both failed, I just let it leak. Anyway, the return was a good 3/8-1/2. The feed, as I remember was much smaller, maybe 1/4.... So the above advice makes sense. btw, that Chrysler was the reason I swore to never buy another North American car again. I've been very happy with my Honda in the 7 years I've owned since trading in that piece of junk Chrysler... The turbo however, seemed to be really good quality. I think it was a Garrett.

John, When you get the chance, can you try putting in some avgas and see how the probes respond?

I just got my set of Atkinson sight gauges. I had always planned on putting them in there. I totally agree with with being able to see the fuel. I'm just questioning my initial decision to use capacitive probes. seems like the old float types are the best for my situtation. I'm also planning on using the Blue Mountain EFIS (already starting saving up for this sucker....) and I like the way that it measures fuel by you telling it how much you have on takeoff and then it keeps track of how much you have used during the flight to get the amount remaining. So it looks like I'll have 3 ways of telling how much fuel I have in my plane, EFIS, probes, sight gauges. If I ever run out it will be a truly boneheaded mistake!!

After reading your experience a couple of questions came to mind. First, how good is the stock Mazda turbo? Would some of the high priced turbos from somebody like Turbonetics be worth the extra money if they were more reliable? I'm not an expert, but is seems to me that a turbine that spins at 100,000 RPM is the last thing you would want welded, but maybe all turbos are made this way. Second, would it make sense to separate the turbo oil and coolant supplies from the critical engine systems. Similar to how some people are thinking of separating the cabin heat water/oil circuits? While an hour should be plenty of time to find an airport there may be circumstances where a failure will cause a larger leak giving you much less time.

What if the fuel used changes? Dave said that his are dual calibration which I understand to mean that they can be calibrated for 100% avgas and 100% mogas. My question is what do you do when you have a mixture of 50% avgas/50% mogas? If you had 1/2 a tank of such a mixture on one of the calibrations it would under read, on the other it would over read. Of course 50/50 mixture is just one mixture ratio, the possiblities are endless. If the probes are able to auto-adjust for the current fuel ratio then thats great, problem solved. If not.... I realize that these are great if you plan on only ever using one type of fuel, but I plan on using a rotary and mogas most of the time and avgas when its not avialable. Even with a dual calibrated system I would have to empty the tank totally to get 100% avgas so that the probes read correctly using the avgas calibration tables. As I said these are my assumptions, I have never actually tested any of this and was wondering if anybody else had and what they found.

Any idea what happens when you mix fuels? ie. half tank of 50% avgas/50% mogas? It seems to me that in this situation on one setting you would show empty and on the other you would show full. Have you tested this? I'm loath to use float probes, but capacitance probes seem to have their own problems for the person planning on using mogas from their home field, but avgas when at other fields. Granted, in most cases you would have "mostly" either avgas or mogas but it still may cause a problem. I can see the situation where the pilot want to get his tanks empty so that when he refills he doesn't have this problem and then some delay causes him to run out of fuel. Its a one in a 1000 thing, but from my reading of accident reports, it's stuff like this that often bites you. I guess the best solution is to use a fuel flow system and keep track of the fuel this way when you suspect the guages to be showing bad data.

In this same vein, and hopefully not changing the subject of the thread too much, I'd like to ask whether anybody who has used capacitive probes has had problems when switching between mogas and avgas? I was reading some old Canard Pusher articles on ez.org and saw a story about having problems with the probes reading too low when avgas was used because it has different electrical qualities. It was a rather old story so things may have improved since then, but the author recommended float type probles.

One point about keeping the levels low. This is what is recommended by MGS. When I was talking to them about crystallization issues they recommended storing both the resin and the hardener in the sealed containers as much as possible. Due to some miscommunication they thought that I had left some hardener in the pump for 6 months without using it. This possibility concerned them greatly. They recommended only putting the amount needed for a session in the pump. I think this is overly cautious, but it still makes good sense to keep only 3-4 sessions supply in the pump (ie. what you can reasonably use in a couple of weeks or so).

I suppose you could suck it up with something like a turkey baster.... Up until now (chap 5, just before the big inside layup) I have been using all fast hardener. It has been OK, but I found the seatback to be about the largest part I want to be using all fast on. For the sides I've ordered 4 litres of slow and will mix it 25% /75% slow/fast. Also its getting warmer around here and I can see using this ratio for the summer. Actually I'm glad I ordered all fast to start with. It has made me efficient in doing lay ups. I don't sweat it if my fibers are exactly 45 degrees, or try to make everything perfect. Not that I haven't made mistakes, but I treat them as learning experiences.

Speaking of canopy mods.... To those of you who have ever been in the back seat of a cozy, have you ever wished for a skylight (ie. a plexiglass window on the roof)? All of the pictures I've seen have made it seem pretty dark an claustrophobic back there.