Good and Bad.....
Well the wife wanted to go X-mas shopping so I got to go fly. That began the good.
After getting to the field, I fueled up the plane, and got her ready to go. With the new plug, she started up and came up on the pipe with a zing. In the air, the plane felt strong, but I could tell it was not turning any more than about 23k, so I rolled it over to kill it, and brought it in.
The header had already begun to crack slightly, but at this point, I figured what the heck, was I gonna break it?
I started her back up and got a much better needle this time. MUCH stronger this time. Engine was turning in the 26k range on launch, and began to unload in the air. I made many passes back and forth and some with dives on either end. The plane is much faster, how much I don't know, but definitely faster.
Then the bad came..... With 30 seconds of fuel left, the header broke away completely. At that point, the pipe skewed sideways causing the plane to yaw violently. I began to fly the plane over the runway as it sagged, and tried to do some rolls over the runway to shake the pipe loose. I ended up landing on the far end of the runway. Other than the broken header, the plane came out without a scratch.
Very promising. Time to build a stronger header.
Anyone know of a supplier for aluminum tubing that may be stronger (9/32" diameter) ?