SureFly Electronic Ignition

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blsewardjr
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by blsewardjr »

Rich, thanks. One thought on the CHTs is to install it without the advance timing, which I believe is the source of the moderately (10 degree) CHT rise reported by some. Bernie
Bernie Seward, IR, AGI
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

Well, here's an update. I've been flying around with this unit for awhile and all has seemed solid. But as it happens, all these flights were at modest altitudes, maybe 6,500 ft. Last week I happened to climb up to 7,000 ft. and encountered a couple of engine stumbles just a few minutes apart. So today I ran an intentional test, to climb to higher altitudes and see if I could repeat the problem. Short answer: Absolutely.

Once again startup, engine runup, takeoff (from my 5350 ft. field) went fine. Climbing at 500 FPM, engine hiccuped at ~7400 ft. Then at 8000 ft (3 minutes later) an extended (1-2 second) event. All this with climb mixture, EGT 1300-ish. At that point I descended back down to 6500 ft. and flew around for about 30 minutes with MAP set at 22 in., to mimic higher altitude. Not a problem at all, including further descent and landing.

I saw a facebook posting by a guy who had this altitude-related problem in a 172 and went through extensive troubleshooting with Surefly support, including changing out ignition wires, plugs, and the unit itself. I need to make one more flight to assure myself it's not the right (Slick) mag and get back to Surefly to see where we go. It's quite likely I'll wind up pulling the Surefly and putting the original mag back in.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

Something else interesting. The marketing stuff you see says you can just use your existing plugs and Slick harness. But the information you get states that they will not warranty any SIM unit unless you replace the harness and plugs with new.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

Thinking I had a repeatable condition, today I took the bird up and try to better isolate the problem. Of course nothing happened. Took it to 8,000 ft. and wandered around for a bit. Then 9,000 for awhile more. Altogether 1.1 hours on the Hobbs and not a single problem. Atmospheric conditions were almost identical: same baro setting, a couple of degrees C warmer. :scratch:
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

The saga continues. As a troubleshooting step, Surefly recommended wrapping #14 wire around the power lead, grounded at the p-lead ground and battery negative terminal, as a kind of shield for the power lead. But I held off on that, instead making a couple of changes:

1. Because we replaced the left mag, we didn't ground the shield of the p-lead to that mag, as Diamond doesn't so ground it. I think it may have to do with the Slickstart. In any case, I took care of that, adding a ring terminal to the shield wire, which Diamond had not provided.

2. In the process, I discovered that the p-lead itself was loose on the terminal. This is because the lower nut, which holds the connecting post in place, was loose against its base. So I removed the p-lead (see note below) and snugged that down, and reconnected the p-lead. snugging its attaching nut down.

Should be able to retest tomorrow.

NOTE: Naturally I neglected my own advice. Namely, when I removed the p-lead the Surefly started blinking, as I had not removed the power fuse. This made the ignition hot :shock: I removed the fuse, as I should have done in the first place, before continuing.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced any problems? Response to my experience has been lacking here.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Steve »

Rich wrote: Fri Apr 24, 2020 11:05 pmI'm curious if anyone else has experienced any problems? Response to my experience has been lacking here.
Ah, the burden of being an early adopter...

Rich, you may be the only DA40 owner on this Forum who has a SureFly installed. The rest of us are eagerly waiting for you to work out all of the bugs, so our future installs are trouble-free... ;)

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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by blsewardjr »

I decided against it for now. Thanks, however, Rich for taking the lead on working out the bugs!
Bernie Seward, IR, AGI
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

Flew some today - 7,500 ft. No excitement. An interesting data point: I ran a mag check at cruise. Switch to right mag, got the expected modst power drop, but engine still ran smoothly. Switch to the left (Surefly) and no detectable change in power and the engine stayed smooth.

And yes, grounding works. I did a normal runup mag check before and after the flight. Mags both drop as normal. Of course on the ground (3,250 ft. elev.) the Surefly is at 25 deg - not advanced at all.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by MarkA »

Rich, I also am waiting until the next magneto service is due before considering this upgrade and appreciate your efforts working out the issues before hand.

I'm curious about how (or if) the recommended "Engine Power at % of Max Take-Off Power" settings in the POH (attached) should be adjusted to account for the SureFly advancing the timing during cruise flight. Any thoughts?

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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

MarkA wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:27 pm I'm curious about how (or if) the recommended "Engine Power at % of Max Take-Off Power" settings in the POH (attached) should be adjusted to account for the SureFly advancing the timing during cruise flight. Any thoughts?
I haven't done much detailed investigating in that area. I don't take those charts as gospel, though. They were never adjusted for the Powerflow, for one thing. I think at the same power settings and EGTs I've long used that fuel consumption may be down by about 1/2 GPH. In any case, I tend to not worry too much about what the book says, ever since I added the Powerflow a number of years ago. Most of us have that system. As one who converted from the original, I can say that the POH was pretty spot-on before, but not after.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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