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Hello All,

Put in a great week-end of flying. 4.8 hours of cross countries. On my last 2.2 hour flight, when I landed at the remote airport to get a bit of Petrol, I noticed my starboard exhaust pipe as .5 to .8 inches lower than it was yesterday. To the point where the exhaust started eating/burning the black carbon fiber cowling fairing piece. Have any of you experienced this? I am taking the fairing off this week to inspect was is askew.

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Its a little hard to tell from the photos but what I can see it appears you have the original exhaust system which is prone to premature failure. This is text book tell tell for a failed exhaust. If you do have the original exhaust you got a fantastic run out of it based on the hours in your fuel pressure post. The latest exhaust system is far superior to the original in all aspects. A lot of Engineering, Time, and Test went into developing the newer exhaust system. It sounds like you already are discontinuing flying again but I can't emphasize enough that you inspect this closely prior flying again. If you can take a better photo into the cowling I can tell you which exhaust system you have I'll also tell you where to look for cracks but my guess it will be fairly obvious.

Your problem could be as simple as that triple wrapped safety wire cracked and broke (this is my guess). Or as extreme as cracked joint or weld junction. You can use a flash light to see if the safety wire is broken without removing the cowlings, but I'd still remove them as its not always obvious.

Original exhaust looks like this (safety wire circled in red):

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I will ask my A&P to take a peek under the cowling this week. Thanks for the post. What does the new design look like? Is it visually different? My log book shows no exhaust replacement.

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Very different it has a bunch of ball joints smaller muffler, and mounts to the inner exhaust fairing. It’s sizable upgrade as you need a new carbon inner fairing along with all the rest of the parts. To my knowledge none have been removed from service for failure but I’ve been gone for nearly two years so don’t know the latest data. I’m surprised ICON doesn’t have a photo in the maintenance manual.

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I seem to remember that my resonator is circular-ish and much smaller than the picture you sent out. Will check it out!

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The modification would have been done under an MRA or at the very least had a log book entry (I hope ??????)

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Nope… No entry. Maybe before shipment? ASN00024

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Nope, ASN 00024 was built way before we started the exhaust project. The first as produced aircraft withe the new exhaust was ASN00110

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I will send pictures to Vacaville to ID which I own. Thanks!

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The aircraft is back to its original configuration with new safety wire. Looks more like Baling wire to me. No fastener, just wrapped wire. It looks like my starboard exhaust pipe out of the resonator is too low and the A&P mechanic used the safety wire to rotate it clockwise from its seated position thereby raising the pipe. The safety wire had loosened and the pipe had rotated back counter clockwise to its seated position (pointing downward). I had the A&P re wire it with a solid spacer to maintain position and tension. We will see if it holds. Now all I need is a new CF fairing.

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Bret, do you have a picture of the "New" Design?

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New Exhaust... 12K. Has anyone done it? Is it quieter?

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Haha they sent you a screen shot of the production work instruction which they put in the Major Repair Alteration document for the change.

Its a minor reduction in noise from the exterior, interior I'd argue its a wash or too difficult to measure. Maybe within a 1 dBA slightly quieter exterior which is a lot but most people can't perceive the difference of 1 dBA. The biggest difference is that its much, much, more robust to early failures. I don't think we had a early failure that I know of but I don't have the most up-to-date info.

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I had same issue with burnt black fairing and burnt right side cowling. icon replaced the parts and adjusted the exhaust so that it was no longer angled to touch the cowling and burn the fairing. whole job took 1 hour but i did have to fly it to Tampa for the work.

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Interesting! Thanks Richard!

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If the stainless steel exhaust is the "new" exhaust, then ours developed some looseness on one side. Flyable to the shop, but needs to be replaced. And both sides per Icon.

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Both versions of exhaust are stainless steel specially 316Ti. So saying you have the stainless steel version doesn’t define which exhaust you have. The two different exhaust types are easily identified by the graphic and photos in the above posts. Also if you have aircraft serial number 110 or above you have the new version of the exhaust that’s when the new design was cut in. Serial numbers of 109 and below would only have the new exhaust if they were subsequently modified by a MRA. There are several below 109 that have been modified.

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Thanks Bret. We had to have a new fairing installed so does that mean its the new version? Its in the shop now, so you can beat the APs to the punch.

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FINAL REPORT: For those of us with GEN-1 Exhausts. During my Annual, my Super A&P, James re-aligned the exhaust pipes on my Icon so they are now pointing where they should. It seems the AFT exhaust u-pipe can and will rotate and throw-off the tip position. I now know how to fix that. Thanks James!