It's Alive!
With the world conspiring against me making the trip to Tulsa to watch the engine run, I persevered. Bill, Sandi and I launched from KOWI about 12:45pm, southbound for Tulsa. This was about an hour later than planned. We landed at KTUL in Tulsa a few minutes before 2:00. (This would be a 5 hr drive!) We parked at TulsAir and managed to find a way through the security fence to walk across the street to BPE. I had told Allen we would be there around 1:00, so they were ready to go. We promptly walked back to the dyno.
Monty Barrett is the dyno master and would get things going and then Mike would take over and do the run. Everything was ready, so they flipped on the fans and started the engine. BINGO! it literally started right up! I couldn't believe it. I expected it to give us a little trouble.. but nope.. with the equivilant of 2-3 blade turns it was running. Allen was checking for oil leaks and Mike took over the test stand.
The next hour and half was spent slowly breaking the engine in. They have a defined procedure with checks/balances in place. The top it out at 2700 rpm for a few minutes to get a peak HP reading and then slowly cool it down. I was so happy the thing started and ran OK, the rest was kinda boring. Not much excitement watching it run. On seperate occasions both Monty and Allen had me hold my hand on the engine to fell how smooth it ran. The engine is hard mounted to the dyno stand, no rubber shock absorbers. You could barely feel any vibration at all. Even when they had it idling around 600rpm, it was smooth. After shut-down they did a compression check and we celebrated a good run!
End result: 166hp and a perfectly running engine!
I'm going to twist Bill's arm to drive down with me on the 29th to pick up the engine and bring it home.
Monty Barrett is the dyno master and would get things going and then Mike would take over and do the run. Everything was ready, so they flipped on the fans and started the engine. BINGO! it literally started right up! I couldn't believe it. I expected it to give us a little trouble.. but nope.. with the equivilant of 2-3 blade turns it was running. Allen was checking for oil leaks and Mike took over the test stand.
The next hour and half was spent slowly breaking the engine in. They have a defined procedure with checks/balances in place. The top it out at 2700 rpm for a few minutes to get a peak HP reading and then slowly cool it down. I was so happy the thing started and ran OK, the rest was kinda boring. Not much excitement watching it run. On seperate occasions both Monty and Allen had me hold my hand on the engine to fell how smooth it ran. The engine is hard mounted to the dyno stand, no rubber shock absorbers. You could barely feel any vibration at all. Even when they had it idling around 600rpm, it was smooth. After shut-down they did a compression check and we celebrated a good run!
End result: 166hp and a perfectly running engine!
I'm going to twist Bill's arm to drive down with me on the 29th to pick up the engine and bring it home.
