Turbo

If you do much cruising at altitude, and running appropriately leaned, I would think you'd appreciate an oil flow driven by rpm & throttle position, & hence not leaned, over the leaned oil flow (along with fuel) with premix.  Isn't there a seisure risk for under-lubricating a 2-stroke?
I live in a high-moisture environment and am concerned that synthetic oil may not provide adequate rust protection.  If you live in a dry environment, you could fix the OI lever at the 70:1 position, fill the oil tank with synthetic, and be able to tank up at any airport, without bothering with premix.  And you'd have no cable to worry about!

Yeah, Jimchuk, I am skeered of full throttle!  That 582 is a mighty little bugger!  Maybe all this excess of oil will become a nonproblem once the OI system is back up?  Or at least mitigated to some extent.

Thanks, John.  Lots of sage advice there.  My bird seems to get 80mph IAS on 4500 rpm, yet it doesn't seem so clean aerodynamically, although it is lightweight.  Lower altitude (3k) maybe?  I have no interest in VGs, as they also reduce maneuvering speed, along with stall speed.  Will have to take a look at the thermostat.  Engine seems quite healthy, but the carbs are the old variety with no drilling for venturi pressure, so I have relied on measurements of throat opening for balance.  I'm sure if i could tune to equalize pressures I could do a better job of balancing them, and perhaps improve smoothness. 
It seems I need to use a spark plug wrench and paper towel to clean one or more plugs before it will start.  Is there a work-around for this?  - Art

I have heard it said that if the cable breaks you will burn up your engine.  This is not necessarily so - with a small mod to the oil pump.  There is an untapped 6 mm hole on the front side of the pump which could have been used to attach the banjo fitting for one of the OI lines in some installations, but in our case is not being used.  Tapping that hole allows one to bolt on a small L-shaped piece of aluminum custom-bent to limit the downward travel of the cable-attach actuator arm to that corresponding to the second tick on its face, or the slack-cable position.  This way the oil mixture ratio can't go below 70:1, even with a cable failure.  This should allow at least part-power operation to get you down, and maybe even to the next airport.  

Other side of the super-river.  But yeah, WAAM in Hood River, OR, is great.  Huge collection of antique cars and airplanes. 
I think I'll keep those tight TW chains.  No hangar  to pull into yet, just trailer & garage. Still working on getting comfy with post-touchdown fast taxi.  It's hard staying off of those brakes.  Sorta glad I have the narrower stock gear, as wider stance would exacerbate yaw sensitivity to braking, although it's also clear that with the narrow gear's geometry, hard tarmac touchdowns chew up the tires.  Gotta work on greasing her on.
On the tailfeathers comment:  A big advantage of the flat-plate airfoil shape on the H-tail is its insensitivity to contamination.  The max CL is so low that in essence it can't go lower, even with serious mud & crud on the lower surface.  So the designer just sizes ithe H-tail appropriately, and we clumsy fudpuckers can't ever get into the deadly situation where the tail stalls, losing so much downward lift that we lose control.   Smart.  ATR turboprops scare me, as the H-tail is so small that tail stall in icing conditions is a real and scary prospect, especially with flaps down for landing.  I know - it has a de-icing boot, but what if the pilot doesn't realize he's got ice, or forgets to bump it off with the boot?  It has happened.  

I have only a single tank, but a vent line joins the fuel line at the aluminum-tube header tank behind the right seat.  I always fly with the vent line open, as I use it to reckon fuel quantity.  I have never had air from the vent line enter the header tank, stopping the flow of fuel.  With one tank empty you have essentially the same condition - with one important exception:  Where my lines join down at the header tank, the static head is about 3 ft of fuel, something around 1 psi or a little more.  If your fuel lines from the two tanks join up high, near the tanks, an empty tank may simply suck air, as happened to you, as there is not enough head at the confluence to back-fill the empty line to counter the potential inflow of air, especially in a dynamic situation, where slight differences in pressure drop exist.  Also, you would be susceptible to fuel cutoff in uncoordinated flight, such as, say a slip, with empty wing high, even with a little fuel still in the nearly-empty tank, as it gets used up.  If you run each tank's individual fuel line down to join at the header tank, this problem will go away.  The additional static head will cause the fuel line from the empty tank to almost completely back-fill, blocking the entry of air, and fuel will be drawn from any tank containing fuel.  The only problem with this setup is sensitivity to uncoordinated flight when nearly full, which could cause you to lose fuel.  This is the big advantage of a fuel selector valve. . You won't lose fuel in a slip.  By the way: the speed of the fuel through the lines is only on the order of 10 in/sec at full throttle - pretty slow, and the pressure drop through a clean paper inline fuel filter is negligibly small, way less than a psi. (I just tested this on my Avid with 582!).

Interesting comment, John.  CHT should do a better job of telling us how hot the combustion chambers are, and if I were flying behind an air-cooled 4-stroke, I'd definitely have CHT.  In that case, the most tortured part is the exhaust valve, whose only cooling comes from conduction thru the valve stem into the guides into the cylinder head, so yeah, keeping those heads cool is critical to the valves' longevity.  My setup has a big bellyrad, so I'm always operating "oń the thermostat", with only minor changes in CT.  With liquid cooling, I'm not convinced that CHT tells us anything unique from what we get from CT.  I would expect that liquid cooling would go a long way towards flattening any thermal gradients that might otherwise exist around the cylinders.  The heat capacity of water is huge.  Even mixed 50-50 with ethylene glycol it's big.

O.K., so it looks like there are two ways to get a high EGT: 
(1) High EGT due to not prop-loading the engine sufficiently, so it's always spinning a little fast like in a descent, and where combustion may still be occurring as the ports open approaching the end of the power stroke at BDC.  I suspect this wastes fuel, just heating the exhaust manifold.  
(2) High EGT at high power due to having too lean a mixture, so all fuel is burned, with none available for absorbing heat by being vaporized without burning. Like I said, I hate using fuel as a coolant only, but I sure don't want to melt a piston.
I think Vance has the right approach, but there may be less maximum power available for Takeoff and climb if the engine can't rev up to 6500 rpm.  I don't know about your bird, but mine is light, and accelerates like a dragster on takeoff.  I could easily give a little T/O performance away in order to reduce cruise fuel burn by operating the engine more efficiently.  To do this I'd increase the prop pitch for a lower max static RPM, which would lower EGTs, but then lean at altitude for even lower fuel burn, of course monitoring EGT. In cruise, with lower thermal load and better cooling, it may be impossible to lean to the point of exceeding the EGT limit anyway, as the engine would start running rough first. So you just lean to best rpm.
With the idle circuit set for sea level, idle will be too rich at higher density altitudes.  The Arctic Sparrow system only affects the mid-range, so stays full rich at idle and WOT. But that's not what I have. I am leaning by lowering the float-bowl pressure, which affects all 3 circuits.  So if I'm at a 6000 ft field in summer at gross and don't lean for takeoff, my engine will be way too rich and may bog and not perform adequately.  If before takeoff I lean to a smooth idle, I may run too hot on climbout and melt a piston.  Maybe the answer is a compromise, midway in between.  Maybe, like Bandit, I lean to just the smooth side of rich at run-up, on the mid-range needle.  Voila the term "experimental"!

Vance Simons (NorthIdahoAvidFlyer) has observed that these 2-strokes like to be loaded up, and I suppose we all have observed lower EGT on climbout, and higher values in descent.  I do believe Vance is onto something here.  I also think its important to understand what EGT represents.  I think high EGT must mean that energy is being wasted, that efficiency is down, perhaps because combustion is happening a little too slowly, making for a hot exhaust manifold.  My recollection is that aluminum is extruded at around 1200F, our EGT maximum, as it starts to soften enough to flow.  Generous piston skirts, coupled with water cooled cylinder walls, and auminum's very high thermal diffusivity, keep our pistons cool enough to stay together.  An insulative ceramic layer on top helps too.  Firing every stroke must work to keep them hot, at least relative to the pistons in a 4-stroke.  Loading up the engine by increasing pitch and dropping the static full-throttle RPM will lower EGT, but are we being harder on the pistons in terms of heat loading?  I'm not convinced that EGT tells us the whole story, but we have little else.  So I guess my question is if anyone has observed lower fuel flow with higher prop pitch, at the same altitude and IAS.  Leni, you have the IFA prop, right?  And has anyone ever melted a piston while staying inside the EGT limits?
BTW, I just installed a manual leaning system using Cowlove's approach, using a small, 12V diaphragm vacuum pump.  I am hopeful that it can also be used to smooth out idle on the ground, whatever the density altitude.  There's a new knob on the dash.  I think I'll label it "chemtrails".

One has to wonder: if EGTs come down with the engine loaded up, everything else equal, does this mean that fuel is being used more efficiently since gases leaving the cylinders are more completely burned, and cooled by expansion pushing the piston down?  Ostensibly, this is instead of some combustion still occurring as the ports are opened at the end of the stroke.  Do I have this wrong?  Does anyone who has a fuel flowmeter onboard have a read on this?  If EGTs are lower, one could ostensibly lean the mixture a little, which would also save fuel.  I hate the idea of using unburned fuel as a coolant!  
So what's with the factory advice on this?  Like with the super-rich idle mixture, why would they mislead us?  I've leaned out my idle.  On go-arounds I get no hesitation; the bird practically levitates instantly as soon as the throttle knob goes in!  No hesitation.  There is obviously very little penalty for not having a rich idle like the factory advocates!  O.K., It doesn't start quite as readily when really cold, but then I just hit the primer a couple of times, and off we go!

My comment re totalizer was not clear, and your point is well taken.  I am using the fuel level in the vent line to my question-mark vent atop the canopy (and visible thru the plexiglass, by-the-way) to see how much fuel I have left, instead of "surf's up" in my fuel tank window.  With a totalizer I will close off that vent, or maybe eliminate it altogether, and rely on my gauges to tell me how much fuel I have left.  Your forward-facing fuel tank vent is a great way to go if you have multiple tanks, as the total pressure is the same everywhere outside of the boundary layer, regardless of local overspeed, and a forward-facing (Pitot) tube will capture that to within 1% or less if not misaligned more than 10 degrees to the local flow.  Put the forward tip parallel to the local surface, not the freestream.  All such vents should be at the same elevation, obviously.  But yeah, it's a bitch if one of them turns around, as in your case.  And of course, with forward-facing vents, I'd try not to fly through intense rain showers..

Got the old hoses off.  Not so tough.  1/2" seems too easy a fit, but I had just enough 7/16" ID tubing to do the job.  The upper tube fitting to engine is fiendishly difficult to get on, what with the motor mount, carbs, and fuel pump in the way.  Moved the latter two and it still was very difficult!  Finally got there, then had Sr. moment and forgot which tube goes to which side of the reservoir!  I think the lower one goes to the side opposite the cap on the reservoir.  At least that's what my pics indicate.  If I've got this wrong, please let me know!  
Hey, I flew for 3rd time, made better landings, and the fear factor finally dissolved and I had fun!  Now to start planning some XC flights, put the OI system back on (Thanks to NorthIdahoAvidFlyer), rig up  Cowlove-style HAC system, etc. etc..  Yee-Haw!

Thanks, JimChuk.  Your procedure sounds both simpler and less messy than mine!  Does tilting the plane nose-down liberate air internally stuck in a high place in the gearbox cavity?

Just realized my leakage problem is the hoses!  Oil drips appear on firewall and below on muffler.  No brown goo in coolant. Tygon tubes look wet, with drop hanging from low point. Whew!  Now, to replace hoses.  So now, gents, some questions!
1.  Is ordinary Tygon, vinyl tubing from hardware store o.k. for this?   What size?
2.  What is best procedure for re-filling the gearbox on inverted engine?  (Connect new tubes to engine, loosen plug on exhaust side of engine, fill from lower hose until oil comes out of plug, close plug, fill upper tube & connect to reservoir, use turkey baster on lower tube to chase any bubbles out of upper line to reservoir, fill lower line & connect to reservoir, fill reservoir...?)
I want to make sure I've got this right, as I understand not doing so has dire consequences!  Thanks in advance...Turbo

It seems to me that most importantly the two tanks' gas caps must provide the same pressure to the two tanks.  This can be negative, as we don't really have much dynamic pressure (16.4 psf at 80 mph IAS is not much!).  Above the wing's boundary layer, you can't beat Pitot-tube vents for equality.  However, with the Pitot tube vents, and one swapped around backwards, and ignoring local overspeed-induced low pressure where the tip ended up, the pressure difference is equivalent to about 5.4" of gasoline (again at 80mph IAS), although local pressure on that aft-facing tube can be a big player due to its location, and max overspeed occurs near max wing upper-surface elevation in cruise.  So It's easy to get how lots of fuel departed, with a ~6" or greater effective fuel elevation difference between the two tanks, which is comparable to our wing's thickness!  Glad you got it down safely!
My Avid has only the one wing tank, with the Ford Model A gas cap, undoubtedly exposing my tanked fuel to a mild vacuum in flight.  My take is that it's not enough vacuum to matter.  Mine has an additional header-tank vent, which I use as a sight tube, the line of which connects to a question-mark-shaped vent tube which attempts to match the pressure at the gas cap.  I'm keen to get a totalizer so I can know how much fuel I really have!

3rd flight today.  Just like Leni says, gas thru the tanks is what gets you there!  Found my tailwheel chain/spring arrangement had slack, and wondered if this was contributing to my ungraceful zigging & zagging post touchdown.  Moved some washers around to get rid of the slack, and presto!  I could smoothly control the direction I'm rolling at higher speeds!  My landings were not perfect, but way better than last time.  JimChuk's grin has arrived!  I am feeling like light at the end of the tunnel is not that of an oncoming train; that this can be done with grace...eventually!  In Leni's terms, that saucy Spanish gal who with body language and taunting look asked if I was man enough to dare try to conquer her has been given her answer! .
I learned to fly years ago in a C-150, and hated that sprung nosewheel steering.  My old Tri-Pacer had direct connection to the nosewheel, which I liked much better.  On the Avid, all that slack in the tailwheel connection to rudder must have some function, and maybe some guys just let the tailwheel swivel.  Being a TW newb, I dunno.  But in fast taxiing I have found that a more direct connection to that tailwheel is beneficial.  Is there controversy here?  Or is there a tradeoff I don't groc as yet?

Reading up, I have gained the impression that replacing the two seals on the crankshaft essentially mandate a new or rebuilt crank, which is expensive.  If it's the seals on the valve shaft, I may see either nothing, or brown oil goo/oil foam forming in my cooling system, depending on which seal has the issue.  So far, no goo.  I'll keep an eye on that, too.  Goo is clearly a non-starter.  Thanks for the input, Joey.  Looks like I've got some expenses on the horizon.

Randy,
I live on the other side of the Columbia, in Mill-A, but it will be fun to meet and compare notes.  Just let me know when you're in town so-to-speak.  HR airport has grass, but also the dreaded glider ops, so I am liking CG regional in Dallesport, with its 100' wide and long runways.  Wind often dumps out of the Gorge and right down runway 31 there.  Gotta love that!
- Turbo (Art)
 

But Leni, you are a poet!    I gotta admit that my fear of that embarassing groundloop has my dance steps a little choppy and nerdy-looking.  I'm zigging & zagging along the runway desperately trying to keep it on the tarmac, never mind the centerline!  I keep imagining myself the day's high amusement for the other fliers at the airport, but so far am not hearing the murmurs or seeing any smirks.  Perhaps they recall their own rights of passage.  Thank God the true terraphiliacs are blind to my plight!  Thanks for the advice and encouragement.  Gas thru the tanks!  Banzai!   

Thanks, Bandit.  Will give it a try.
 

Had 2nd flight July 26th. I found that I have the #50 idle jets, and backed the air screws out as far as I could before the o-rings started to uncork.  Adjusted idle speed down to 1800 rpm.  Idle was much better, and the bird would descend for landing just fine!  Lifting the tail helped tame the takeoffs, but green as I am, I had difficulty judging height above the runway on landings. A couple were a bit hard as I stalled too high above the runway.  I am now thinking that holding it off as long as possible is not a good plan - rather better if I just flare to a low sink rate by parking the nose relative to some reference like the end of the runway or the horizon and let the ship settle.  I am still way overcontrolling rudder on runout, and need to mix in more subtlety, and stop being such a nervous Nellie.  As Leni says - "more fuel thru the tanks" is the answer.  I'm still a little skeered of the beast,  but  JimChuk's grin is starting to appear on my face.  Can't wait to land into a headwind!  Oh yeah - I went to a different airport with no glider ops, and a longer, wider runway. Whew!  Love the smooth response of the 582, and the bird, even with all those unnecessary openings in the front of the cowl, and big bellyrad, felt slippery!  Measured 80mph at 4500 rpm.  EGTs were above 1000F everywhere except at idle, not optimal, but in the range.  CT was rock steady at 150F.
I have just cut up a beer coaster for use as a friction disk for my cheeseball trim system, but now have to reinstall the stbd bungee.  Cork for the disk might have been better.  Thoughts?  Trim will sure be welcome!    Full flap appears to not be anything near 25 degs, more like 15 on one side with stick full over! What gives?   -Turbo

Funny how we build houses on the beach either in ignorance of climatic drifting, or because our timescales are related to the human life span.  Climate stasis is the myth.  I do get a kick out of "measurements" of global temps taken 50 or more years ago, when the sensor count was way below what it is now, and uncertainties much higher as a result. That doesn't stop some from extrapolating anyway. From what I've experienced, it is difficult even for educated "trained" scientists to always remain open and objective.  If I'm not mistaken, a few decades ago we were concerned about global cooling.  One of my favorite historical notes is J. Harlan Bretz' study of eastern Washington, where he saw evidence of a giant, catastrophic series of floods, stripping all topsoil out of certain areas and moving huge rocks hundreds of miles.  Presenting his findings to the geological world he was almost laughed off of the stage, as they at the time held firmly to a "gradualist" view of geological processes.  J.T. Pardee set the record straight a few decades later upon discovering evidence of a huge ice-age lake (Look at the hillsides surrounding Missoula, MT - they are like stairsteps, clearly the shores of an ice-age lake.)  The ice dam holding all that water back was roughly at the Idaho border, near lake Pend Oreille.  Evidence holds that it was undercut and failed repeatedly as the ice sheets melted and withdrew to the north.  That ice age came to a rather abrupt end about 15,000 to 12,000 years ago, no thanks to man.   So hold onto your hats boys, we're all on this rock together!  And it's not our feet on the rudder pedals, IMHO. - Turbo

Something looks a bit strange in the vids, in that the broken rib tails don't look to have been made from the high quality 10-layer birch plywood, but rather something a lot less strong.  I agree that this is a weak point in the design, and yet another point of vigilance.  One could argue ones self into a very long pre-flight inspection.  

So sad to see your beautiful bird hurt.  Glad you're o.k., Fred