Problem with Secondary ignition...

[sonex1020x]

Dale,
I resent your implication that i might be a careless pilot willing to fly a" broken airplane". You know NOTHING of my airplane, my experience or flight conditions that day. You should know that all takeoffs are optional, and carry varying risk that you can choose to accept or not. In my 56 years of flying, I have rejected or aborted my share of takeoffs for different reasons. I have never had an incident, accident, or even scratched an aircraft (outside of the hangar ,anyway :-) ) in those years. You may elect to not takeoff with a certain crosswind component, where i might feel it is safe. This does not make me an inherently reckless pilot. I posted many questions that i had regarding my ignition problem, none of which were "do you think I should takeoff with those conditions?". Unsolicited and derogative advice is never appreciated. Secondly, you mock all of us Aerovee owners with your "Install a Corvair" ! If you want to continue to espouse your amazing conservative safety values and ideas, there are other places on this forum in which to do that. George.

[sonex1020x]

To all you others who shared valuable information, Thank you ! FYI I ordered two new coils and a set of plug wires today, so hopefully that resolves my issue. And, did you know that Sonex considers a "set" of plug wires to be only two? No information on their Web Store to indicate a "set" is only two wires, not 4. If you go to any auto parts store to get a set of plug wires say, for a Chevy V-8, you will get 8 wires ! Go figure ! Thanks again, and I will re-post with results hopefully soon. George.

[daleandee]

Dale,
I resent your implication that i might be a careless pilot willing to fly a" broken airplane". You know NOTHING of my airplane, my experience or flight conditions that day. You should know that all takeoffs are optional, and carry varying risk that you can choose to accept or not. In my 56 years of flying, I have rejected or aborted my share of takeoffs for different reasons. I have never had an incident, accident, or even scratched an aircraft (outside of the hangar ,anyway :-) ) in those years. You may elect to not takeoff with a certain crosswind component, where i might feel it is safe. This does not make me an inherently reckless pilot. I posted many questions that i had regarding my ignition problem, none of which were "do you think I should takeoff with those conditions?". Unsolicited and derogative advice is never appreciated. Secondly, you mock all of us Aerovee owners with your "Install a Corvair" ! If you want to continue to espouse your amazing conservative safety values and ideas, there are other places on this forum in which to do that. George.

George,

I certainly didn't mean to strike a nerve with you. But differing degrees of crosswind experience and willingly flying a plane with a known ignition issue do not comport.

BTW ... my "install a Corvair" remark was totally in jest as should be noted by the smiley face ...

Best,

Dale
3.0 Corvair/Tailwheel

[tps8903]

To all you others who shared valuable information, Thank you ! FYI I ordered two new coils and a set of plug wires today, so hopefully that resolves my issue. And, did you know that Sonex considers a "set" of plug wires to be only two? No information on their Web Store to indicate a "set" is only two wires, not 4. If you go to any auto parts store to get a set of plug wires say, for a Chevy V-8, you will get 8 wires ! Go figure ! Thanks again, and I will re-post with results hopefully soon. George.

Hi George.

Not sure if it was mentioned already. A resistance test on coils isn't always accurate. I tested coils that appeared fine but after replacement it was obvious that one of them was bad.

I got bit by the spark plug wire ordering issue as well.

[sonex1020x]

Thanks Chris. I tried reasoning with Sonex and simply said they should note on their web store that a "set" of wires is only two. They said it is how their supplier sells them to Sonex. I replied, I'm not buying from your supplier, I'm buying from you. George.

[sonex1020x]

Hi all ! George with an update. I purchased two new coils and new secondary ignition wires in hopes of solving the #2 cylinder not firing on the secondary ignition. No joy. Problem still exists. Barely will run on secondary only, and the #2 egt starts falling off. It runs just fine on the Primary ignition with all 4 egts reading as they should. Do you know if a bad trigger can result in just one cylinder not firing? And, what's the best way to test the triggers? And, it looks like they can be replaced with the engine still mounted, but may have to take off the starter? Any ideas? I did email Sonex and will see what they say. I hate just replacing parts until the problem is solved, but may have to do that. I did check the magnet on the trigger cap and it seems strong. I looked on the Sonex web store and it appears they sell the set of two,prewired triggers that need to be mounted on the plate that is attached with six allen screws. Anybody done this replacement? Thx, George.

[Area 51%]

One trigger fires one coil. One coil fires two cylinders.
If the second cylinder on any particular coil is not misfiring, the trigger would not be the culprit.
My next move would be to swap plug wires from the "bad" cylinder to it's counterpart on the coil in question.
If the problem doesn't move, it's something non-electrical. .

[sonex1020x]

Well, that makes sense to me as well, but, if it's not electrical but mechanical, why does #2 cylinder fire normally on the Primary ignition. Next time i'm out I will swap the plug wire from the number 2 location on the right coil, with the #4 plug wire on the same coil and see what happens. But the coils are new, so not really sure what that tells me? Confused in Utah !! George.

[Area 51%]

By mechanical I mean a problem with a wire shorting or a plug.
If you use anti-seize on the plugs, it's not uncommon to accidently get some on the plug or wire. Either can cause the spark to jump in an unintended location.

Many moons ago in auto shop, we used to remove a wire from the distributor of someone we disliked and draw a line from the terminal to the body of the distributor with a pencil. "Pencil lead", being mostly carbon, gave the spark a handy little shortcut to ground and was maddening to diagnose.

Lessons learned.

[BobDz]

Many moons ago in auto shop, we used to remove a wire from the distributor of someone we disliked and draw a line from the terminal to the body of the distributor with a pencil. "Pencil lead", being mostly carbon, gave the spark a handy little shortcut to ground and was maddening to diagnose.

Lessons learned.

I did the same thing! Many many moons ago.