Cotton Waiex 191 - N191YX

[Hambone]

Nice.

I'm hoping my new heads are imminent, too!

[Area 51%]

I used to have a CX-500. Best bike I ever owned.

[Bryan Cotton]

I used to have a CX-500. Best bike I ever owned.

I've never rode one. My dad used to have the CX500 big brother, the Honda Lead Wing. I have a 1981 Suzuki GN400, owned since new, bought just before I turned 16. Also a 1989 FJ1200, bought after I started working.

Adam has a Honda Magna V30 and a Kawasaki Concours.

[bvolcko38]

"Per Sonex"?

[Bryan Cotton]

"Per Sonex"?

For the last couple of months, I've had an email going back and forth to Sonex - reader's digest version is "are my heads done yet?" They have a bottleneck in the machine shop they use. On top of that, they had a machine break down, and so on. The latest email from Sonex told me my heads were going to be in-process this week, which to me means drilling the second spark plug holes.

Hambone, once the shop sets up for heads, they will do a run of them so you should also get yours soonish.

I ran into Mark Schaible at Oshkosh, before I could say anything he says "we owe you a set of heads." Had a nice talk with him about the challenges they have going on plus there was Oshkosh week.

I am definitely going to use my junk heads to set up tooling to do my own spark plug holes. I can probably do them on the drill press but also there are a couple of milling machines I can get access to.

[Bryan Cotton]

[Bryan Cotton]

It's been almost 3 months since the last flight - engine is back together and we did our first ground run. Flight to follow tomorrow.

Hard to tell with any certainty but the EGTs looked a little more balanced. I saw over 3300 RPM static, I think a new record for me.

[Bryan Cotton]

[Bryan Cotton]

[Bryan Cotton]

Some post-flight observations:
1) We were turning 3400 at 80kts in the climb.
2) I saw 1000 FPM solo and 800 two-up. Steady, not a stick thermal.
3) CHTs were all under 300.
4) Oil pressure at 3400 was 72-75.
5) Oil temp got to 212 during my climb. About 3000 AGL solo and 2000 AGL dual.
6) EGTs much more balanced. With #1 at 1350, #2 & #4 were about 1270. #3 was a little over 1300.
7) Radio didn't transmit
8) Panel lights inop.

Modifications:
GPAS manifolds
Cotton Cooler (tm) cylinder baffles
Bonded in RH gear leg
Cleaned up cooling fins (EMPI heads from Sonex)

It really ran and flew great!