Page 27 - TTFebruary2018

Upon my return the compression on the right engine has miraculously returned to normal. So, now the only problem is just the cracked cylinder on the left side.
In spite of this relative good news, it always seems the tim- ing for this kind of thing is very inopportune. In three days, we were scheduled to fly to Ashland, Oregon, the town also known as the Shakespeare capital of the United States to at- tend a play. Once you have hotel reservations, rental cars arranged, friends invited and tickets purchased, this kind of airplane news is never welcome. Paul knows it, having apolo- gized several times for having found the problem. But then, given events over the past several years with this particular set of RAM VII engines with ECI cylinders, Paul and his fel- low mechanics have learned to be very, very careful when it comes to assessing cylinder health.
The RAM Upgrade That Wasn’t
About four years ago, the RAM VI engines on my Cessna 340A arrived at TBO having been flown using the same tech- nique by the same professional pilot crew for 1,500 hours, all without really much maintenance fanfare. With the engines having worked well through that period, and being pretty happy with the service from RAM, I decided to take the air- plane to Waco, Texas and have RAM change the installation to a VII conversion, the turbochargers coolers for which are quite larger.
When it was finished, I airlined back down, had lunch in the Tex-Mex restaurant the RAM sales guys like to take customers to, then flew the airplane from Waco to Seattle. Almost right away, I could see that the RAM VII conversion did what was advertised. The CHTs were cooler, and the TAS at 220 knots at FL200 with an 18.5 gph fuel flow on the rich side of peak EGT, which was five to 10 knots faster than the prior engines with the same fuel burn. I also thought they ran a little smoother and quieter with the new Scimitar propellers. Although it was somewhat more expensive than having the existing VI series engines overhauled, I was quite happy with my decision.
For about a year those engines ran perfectly. Then the prob- lems began. It was almost like a contagious disease. Starting at about 200 hours, the right engine developing a cracked cyl- inder with the typical blue stain from leaking fuel. Then over 50 to 100 hours, this malady gradually spread to a random assortment of other cylinders, including those on the opposite engine. All this was going on while the airplane was being regularly flown by myself and the same three professional pi- lots who had managed to get 1,500 hours out of the previous engine set without any such problems.
A tell-tail black line and blue staining in an otherwise brand-new looking cylinder revealed an unfortunate conclusion: a crack in the cylinder head.
We were also in the middle of a Northwest winter, with short days, low IFR conditions, and trips that inevitably took us across mountainous terrain with high MEAs, and a lot of ice. A Cessna 340 flies just fine on one engine, but it will not maintain adequate cabin pressure, nor the MEA required over a lot of the western United States with one engine out. We also noticed that the effected cylinders were all made by ECI. This coincided with an active public discussion about the need for an AD on the problem. All this made us pilots feel very ill at ease, and look for reasons to fly a different airplane.
Finally, following one particularly bad nighttime IFR trip from Seattle to Spokane and back, two additional cylinders on opposite engines were discovered to be cracked, and on further investigation the cam shafts were also found to be spauled. This being the fifth and sixth cracked cylinders dis- covered within a 50-hour period, a conference between the Gary the shop supervisor and longstanding lead mechanics Paul and Danny led to the conclusion that even if the two new- ly cracked cylinders were replaced, these 200-hour RAM VII engines with ECI cylinders were simply not airworthy. So, they grounded the airplane. The other pilots were relieved, the owner (me), not so much.
New Engines, New Problems
Anytime this sort of thing happens, pilot technique is the first item brought up when discussing causation. And so, we went through the routine of defending how (we) the pilots op- erated the engines with RAM many times. With the airplane now grounded (AOG), something needed to be done. Their so- lution was to offer to sell us at a discount two newly overhauled engines they had on the shelf. But first before shipping, I need- ed to send a $100,000 cash deposit directly into RAM’s bank account. Given the airplane with relatively new engines from RAM was grounded, this seemed like an odd way to handle a repeat customer known for paying his bills. But they insisted
this was just standard company policy.
It also seemed odd that given all the dif- ficulty being described publicly, RAM had not already switched to a brand of cylinder not plagued with this
The procedures for breaking in a new cylinder are detailed and requires the
full attention of the pilot.
February 2018
TWIN & TURBINE • 25