BMW Engined Aquilla

[Oddball]

Here are a few pics of a conversion of an Aquilla to fit a BMW engine to it. The wiring is fairly complex as there are two batteries. I have based the circuit on a so called 'Z' diagram by Bob Nuckolls of the Aeroelectric Connection. Its a well thought out diagram that is failure tolerant- that is, any one failure should not cause an emergency landing.

[Oddball]

Here are some more pics of the fuel system; there are two pumps that feed from either side of the fuel manifold. The manifold allows the integration of the three tank outlets, about 6mm in diameter, to the pump inlets, of a larger diameter.
The pipes to the fuel pumps had to be integrated with aluminium pipe to allow for smaller bend radii (see photo Fuel5).
Fuel8 shows the relay that controls the starting of the main fuel pump- controlled by the E-Boxi; the standby/ backup pump comes on immediately when you switch over to the backup ECU.

[Oddball]

Here is the wiring system and some more of the components. The first is the E-Boxi mounting point; the circled item is the alternator contactor. Each battery and the alternator may be isolated from the system by using these contactors.

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Here is a general shot of the engine

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Another general shot showing the RDAC and IO Extender mounting on the left and the fuel pressure regulator on the right.

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This is the FAP- the Fuse Annunciator Panel; it gives you the status of all the fuses by pressing a button; a dead LED indicates a blown fuse and the panel will eventually be engraved with the location of the fuse.

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Here is the backup HT coil mounting; this supplies the second plugs with power- the first ones use a coil on plug arrangement, as seen in the second photo

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This is the panel- a bit funny looking as it is not screwed in yet

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Here is one of the throttle bodies; the cork seen on the right is to close the second injector hole as we are waiting for parts. The engine ran just fine like this although it tends to spit the cork out as you switch off sometimes!

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[Oddball]

Pictures of the wiring and batteries

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[ystervark7]

Congratulations Jay!!

(Jay is very modest but he did manage to get the BMW going by himself without too many problems.)

[Cloud Warrior]

I'll wait for the wireless version to come out............

[JACO]

WOW !!!

Some amazing development done there in a short time.

Well done it really looks Great !

Keep it up. !!

[Oupa-G]

Nice alternative thinking just the right stuff for cross-pollination

Cheers Oupa-G

[caneco]

very nice setting,wen its ready to fly?

[Kalahari]

Well done!

From the attached photo it seem as if someone's mother in law paid you a visit at the hangar!

[Oddball]

We should be able to fly it in a couple of weeks now; just moving the oil cooler to a position that provides it with more airflow. I'll post pictures, sans broom later.

[Tailspin]

Jay

This really looks Good.
Nice going Dude - would like to take a closer look at the wiring specifically, thinking going that way for the Next project.

[Oddball]

Some more photos as promised...
The oil cooler has been situated in the stock (BMW) position, which is completely wrong for this application.

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I have moved it below the engine to a position where it will enjoy more airflow, which has entailed some plumbing modification of course.

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The arrow is showing a fan that I used to blow away the exhaust fumes generated (small arrows) when I was running the engine- it gets a bit uncomfortable in the workshop otherwise!

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We used these new plumbing arrangments to add some sensors, for which I made some custom housings

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These have been used for oil pressure (single arrow) and oil temp (double arrow)

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We have put oil temperature measurements on both sides of the cooler so that we can monitor how the cooler is working. I recall a story on a replica Spitfire that was built using a Jaguar engine where they had huge cooling problems with the engine- they eventually figured out that most of the radiator had been virtually blanked off so that there was no cooling from the radiator at all. These sensors should help us to figure that problem out should we have cooling issues.

[Wargames]

What is the reason for the three into two arrangement on the fuel manifold??

[Oddball]

I have also made a throttle mixer that I hope will sort out some of the problems that you have with the standard round mixer. I find that the round one is very awkward to work with as there is no way to open the tube to fiddle around and adjust or check anything. My mixer is flat, and still experimental, but it seems to work so far

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Whilst adding the new plumbing I was concerned that simply clamping onto a straight pipe might now be enough to hold the pressure in the oil system, so I made a beading machine/ jig/ fixture to put a small bead onto some 1/2inch aluminium piping.

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Here is the final bead

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