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Lycoming in place of Subaru

447BB

Member
Seeking advice from others that have made the switch. N447BB first flight cut very short when Subaru 2.5L suffered sudden internal failure. Fortunately airplane and pilot safe in a nearby cow pasture.

Have decided to not repair the Sube, but will instead install a conventional Lycoming.
 
Good idea.

It would help to know what kind of RV we're talking about, where the third wheel is, and what your mission is (aerobatics, travel, mixture of both).
 
I removed the Subaru conversion from my project after a friend who had bought from the same supplier suffered a mid air failure over dense woodland. Happily he survived mostly uninjured but the aircraft was wrecked. This was the last straw for me with a conversion that was full of bugs and had been horribly misrepresented and oversold by the supplier.

As it was already mounted I had to remove the whole thing cover it in a tarp and stick it in the corner of the workshop. That was the easy bit.

The I found a decent supplier, in my case aerosport, and ordered a real aero engine. Then I contacted Vans and with their help ordered the parts needed to attach it. It wasn't a cheap exercise and put me back years in a build which I hope is now approaching completion.

If your current engine mount pretty much is made to the right pattern then bolting up the new one should be fairly straight forward. Then you have all the usual engine fitting challenges like baffles and cowl work to deal with.

Good luck
 
Conversion

Your current electrical system and fuel system are a good basis for an aftermarket FADEC on a Lycoming. SDS for example.

-Andy
 
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Lycoming vs Subaru

I have a friend, long time RV-4 driver, long time ex-military fighter pilot, who had a Subaru on the front end. After his 9th off field landing due to Subaru failure he finally exchanged the Subaru with a Lycoming. Still flying the RV-4 with Lycoming several years later until he bought an RV-8, yes with a Lycoming.
 
447BB is an RV-7 (tail dragger)
The engine failure occurred without warning at about 500 feet on climb out on the first flight. Fortunately almost straight ahead was a fairly flat and smooth pasture.
Evidence of internal failure includes fact that the crankshaft will not rotate, engine coolant in the oil pan, very dirty oil and some metal chunks removed from the muffler. Some chunks are ferrous and some apparently aluminum. Pretty sure one metal piece is a piece of a piston ring.
We have not removed the oil pan for further investigation. At this point, the engine is a very big paperweight in the back of the hangar.
 
447BB I have a recently overhauled Lycoming IO-360-C1C6. This is a 200hp angle valve 4 cylinder that can take a propeller governor
 
I made the switch from a successful flying 6cyl Subaru to an IO-360-B1E and Hartzell prop. If you are interested, the fuel system installed in your aircraft gives you an excellent start on some sort of electronic fuel injection on a lycoming.

I'd be happy to discuss my experiences with you,

Caleb Lesher
 
swap out

I removed a subaru and installed a lycoming. No issues that I can recall, just had to rip out all the wiring to it, and patch up some unused firewall penetrations. The most painful part was the lost time and money playing with the subaru kit, which was not fully cooked when I bought it. I learned a lot!
 
I have a friend who built an RV9A and is currently on his seventh Subaru engine
unfortunately he hasn't seen the light yet.
Bruce
 
I have a friend who built an RV9A and is currently on his seventh Subaru engine
unfortunately he hasn't seen the light yet.
Bruce

:eek: I know it's "experimental" aviation, but surely there comes a time when the experiment has run to completion and the results have been analyzed and written up?

- mark
 
a little off topic.......i had always thought the sub conversion failure was driven by a bad package put together by one company. reading these posts it seems like a lot of engine related failures. is the subaru engine not up to the task?
 
Seeking advice from others that have made the switch. N447BB first flight cut very short when Subaru 2.5L suffered sudden internal failure. Fortunately airplane and pilot safe in a nearby cow pasture.

Have decided to not repair the Sube, but will instead install a conventional Lycoming.

Welcome to the club, Bill.

It's a lot of work and more money but what the heck, a pilot has to keep on flyin'.

Good job flying the airplane into the crash.

dd
 
a little off topic.......i had always thought the sub conversion failure was driven by a bad package put together by one company. reading these posts it seems like a lot of engine related failures. is the subaru engine not up to the task?

The Subby is an excellent engine - in a car.
 
:eek: I know it's "experimental" aviation, but surely there comes a time when the experiment has run to completion and the results have been analyzed and written up?

- mark

...the results were analyzed and written off, not up.
Only took two for me to see the light. :)
 
William, I am sorry to hear of your Subaru experience. As you can see there are MANY others who have gone down this path before you. I had five flights with my Crossflow Subaru RV7. ALL were emergencies. The longest flight was a minute and a half. By the end of the fifth, my fire extinguisher was empty. I called my friends and they had an intervention -- the engine was pulled in less than an hour. It was hard at first to get over the punch in the gut feeling, and of course the big checks I had written and lost. I bought a new Aerosport I/O-360 M1B, and the transition was pretty smooth. As others have said , you now have a good return fuel system and probably a robust electrical setup. Lean forward and press on. You'll be flying trouble free soon with the peace of mind in knowing you have a proven power-plant up front.
 
I expected this thread to degenerate into a slam the Subie slant which it unfortunately has somewhat. If you don't like them, fine, don't use them.

The OP had a failure, cause unknown, and now he's changing out the engine for a Lycoming- a path also followed by dozens before. If you have something useful to post which would help him make the switch, post away. His decision to change has already been made.

BTW, to counter the negative views of the engine, maybe some of you folks should look at the record of my friend Russell Sherwood in SARL. He's repeatedly destroyed all the Lycoming powered aircraft in his class with his Subaru EG33 powered Glasair many times over the last few years. That's with only 202 cubic inches against 360 and even some 540 powered aircraft. He's nearing 600 hours on it now. He won the "Kick Butt" award at the 2017 Texoma SARL race as well. Can't be a complete *** if it's destroying the mighty Lycomings having almost double (or triple) the displacement. Russell has 5 SARL class wins with 5 races entered- this year alone- "Yesterday the 2017 Indy Air Race took place. This was a challenging race course … there were two energy eating 140 degree turns. I thought this course would cut into our speeds. I made a few drag reducing adjustments and we turned our best time yet. Our Subaru EG33 not only took first in our class but we took first over all racers. Our average speed over the 133 nautical mile closed circuit was 256.66 MPH. The best the competition could muster was 228.73 MPH.
Who is it that says an auto engine can’t sustain continuous high RPM?
We love our Subaru!"

Russell's engine is bone stock except for a low profile, composite intake manifold.

Don't blame engine failures on the engine itself until you know the facts. Most "failures" are caused by improper fuel and spark timing settings or poorly designed ancillaries like PSRUs. The CrossFlow packages as a whole were complete disasters but there was nothing wrong with the core engine design as hundreds of other flying Subarus have proven.

Lycomings suffer catastrophic failures too. Any engine can fail...
 
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Ross - there have been several posts here which indicated the Subie fuel system might be a good starting point for a modern electronic ignition/injection Lycoming. Given your experience, and the awful feeling the OP must currently be experiencing, maybe it would be a good idea to brighten up his day by giving a practical analysis of the suitability of the Subie fuel system as a building block for a modern electronic system? I doubt there are any others on this forum with as much experience in this particular arena so I'm sure any info you can share would brighten the OP's day a little bit.
 
As Ross points out, there are numerous Subaru conversions successfully flying.
The key to that success though is that the majority (probably all) of those were built by someone who already had some background with engines and some knowledge of what it would take to make it work (and the rest they researched and learned along the way)
The problem with that is that the majority of people that have installed a Subaru engine (in RV's anyway) did so on the premise that they were purchasing a fully engineered and tested engine installation kit, and that all they had to do was follow the installation instructions and they would have a FWF installation that was modern/state of the art tech., at a lower cost than a typical Lycoming installation (who wouldn't want that?).

Ross, I am sure you can agree that that has never been reality.
 
Ross - there have been several posts here which indicated the Subie fuel system might be a good starting point for a modern electronic ignition/injection Lycoming. Given your experience, and the awful feeling the OP must currently be experiencing, maybe it would be a good idea to brighten up his day by giving a practical analysis of the suitability of the Subie fuel system as a building block for a modern electronic system? I doubt there are any others on this forum with as much experience in this particular arena so I'm sure any info you can share would brighten the OP's day a little bit.

There are several different Sube packages out there and I can't say I like any of the fuel systems they came with. If the OP wanted to use EFI on his Lycoming, I'd start over from scratch probably. You'd need a Duplex fuel valve and return lines to the tanks. He may already have those parts which could be reused. I wouldn't use the pumps that the two main Sube vendors supplied.

If the OP goes carb or Bendix type FI, he can ignore all of this.
 
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To echo Ross's comments, there are hundreds of successful Subarus flying so a successful FWF certainly can be done.

The biggest issue, IMHO, was a few companies selling Subaru packages and advertising them as "bolt on and go" when they were in fact not polished and finished packages. This naturally resulted in customer failures, which in turn gave the entire swath of Subaru conversions a bad reputation.

There is no doubt that installing a successful Subaru FWF takes a lot more work than a corresponding Lyc, and a lot more knowledge and skill that frankly most of us don't have. Although I think it is fair game to warn others about the particular companies Subaru conversions that we know have issues, it is far from correct to paint all Subaru conversions with the same negative brush, IMHO.

447BB, you didn't mention what Subaru conversion that you have, but you might find someone on the Yahoo FlySoob group willing to buy the rest for parts to help offset the cost of the Lyc installation. If you need help getting on the FlySoob forum, please send me a PM.
 
As Ross points out, there are numerous Subaru conversions successfully flying.
The key to that success though is that the majority (probably all) of those were built by someone who already had some background with engines and some knowledge of what it would take to make it work (and the rest they researched and learned along the way)
The problem with that is that the majority of people that have installed a Subaru engine (in RV's anyway) did so on the premise that they were purchasing a fully engineered and tested engine installation kit, and that all they had to do was follow the installation instructions and they would have a FWF installation that was modern/state of the art tech., at a lower cost than a typical Lycoming installation (who wouldn't want that?).

Ross, I am sure you can agree that that has never been reality.

Yes, I agree with most of what you've said here but we have hundreds of thousands of flight hours on Subarus all over the world proving that the engines are generally sound, outside of some well known issues like HG problems on EJ25s. As I've said numerous times, it's the details in the entire package which makes it work or not. Believe it or not, there are several dozen Egg Subes which have several hundred hours each on them with few if any issues. Most of those owners are not gear heads. RAF built over 400 Gyros with EJ Subes, very few problems. Over 125,000 flight hours on that fleet alone as of 2005. No idea how many now. They are still in production in South Africa, still using Subaru EJ engines.

My estimate is that there is at least 2000 Subaru powered aircraft flying worldwide, making Subarus the second most popular auto engines used in Homebuilts behind VWs.

I've never said the Sube is better than a Lycoming, only that it can work just fine at a fraction of the cost if the conversion is done right. Some folks just don't want a Lycoming up front...

It's simply tiring to listen to people who know little or nothing about engines, lambast auto engines in aircraft when they know squat about the subject or of the many successes. We've been involved with hundreds of auto conversions over the last 23 years. They're not right for lay, mainstream people in most cases but they work just fine for many others and have been failures for many others, generally because they lack the skills to build and develop a reliable package, which is a huge task. Those failures were rarely the fault of the engine in my experience.

All engines have their warts, good and bad points. Subarus generally don't suffer from oil leaks, oil consumption, stuck valves, separated barrels, cam corrosion, loose wrist pin bushings etc. The EJ25 IS well known for HG problems and some cases of valve guides moving in the heads, neither of which are usually sudden or catastrophic. Pick your poison...
 
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Agreed!

...The problem with that is that the majority of people that have installed a Subaru engine (in RV's anyway) did so on the premise that they were purchasing a fully engineered and tested engine installation kit, and that all they had to do was follow the installation instructions and they would have a FWF installation that was modern/state of the art tech., ...
Dat's me. Totally not a cost issue for me, I ended up wasting much more on mine than I spent replacing it with a Lycoming - I just thought I was getting something cooked, more modern, more reliable, etc.
 
I expected this thread to degenerate into a slam the Subie slant which it unfortunately has somewhat. If you don't like them, fine, don't use them.

The OP had a failure, cause unknown, and now he's changing out the engine for a Lycoming- a path also followed by dozens before. If you have something useful to post which would help him make the switch, post away. His decision to change has already been made.

BTW, to counter the negative views of the engine, maybe some of you folks should look at the record of my friend Russell Sherwood in SARL. He's repeatedly destroyed all the Lycoming powered aircraft in his class with his Subaru EG33 powered Glasair many times over the last few years. That's with only 202 cubic inches against 360 and even some 540 powered aircraft. He's nearing 600 hours on it now. He won the "Kick Butt" award at the 2017 Texoma SARL race as well. Can't be a complete *** if it's destroying the mighty Lycomings having almost double (or triple) the displacement. Russell has 5 SARL class wins with 5 races entered- this year alone- "Yesterday the 2017 Indy Air Race took place. This was a challenging race course … there were two energy eating 140 degree turns. I thought this course would cut into our speeds. I made a few drag reducing adjustments and we turned our best time yet. Our Subaru EG33 not only took first in our class but we took first over all racers. Our average speed over the 133 nautical mile closed circuit was 256.66 MPH. The best the competition could muster was 228.73 MPH.
Who is it that says an auto engine can’t sustain continuous high RPM?
We love our Subaru!"

Russell's engine is bone stock except for a low profile, composite intake manifold.

Don't blame engine failures on the engine itself until you know the facts. Most "failures" are caused by improper fuel and spark timing settings or poorly designed ancillaries like PSRUs. The CrossFlow packages as a whole were complete disasters but there was nothing wrong with the core engine design as hundreds of other flying Subarus have proven.

Lycomings suffer catastrophic failures too, we had one reported here a month or so ago which fortunately turned out ok too. Any engine can fail...

Good report Ross, where can the average guy buy one?

Like all race winners, the engines are not stock.

One thing that hooked me on Subaru was how tough the engine was in a car, there was a race some 19 days where a Subaru ran 24/7 for 19 days. Very impressive, one would expect the engine would run at least 4 hours in an airplane without a hitch. Many did not. The transition from car to airplane is not simple, don't make it should like it is.

I tried to make it work for some 400 hours, confidence went down rather than up the longer i tried. I did not have the resources or skill to make it happen. I'm just an average guy who wants to fly, not reinvent the wheel. Lycoming works in an airplane, Subaru for the most part does not.

Yes, there are a few exceptions, but each engine is an exception, one of a kind. There is not cookie cutter Subaru available to drop in an airplane and go fly.
 
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Good report Ross, where can the average guy buy one?

Nowhere. I'm just saying there is nothing wrong with the Subaru engine by itself for powering aircraft. Don't blame 3rd party parts/mods or people who don't know what they are doing for "engine" failures. Nothing to do with the core engine design.

This thread isn't about where you can buy a reliable, proven Subaru conversion for your airplane.
 
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Good report Ross, where can the average guy buy one?

Like all race winners, the engines are not stock.

One thing that hooked me on Subaru was how tough the engine was in a car, there was a race some 19 days where a Subaru ran 24/7 for 19 days. Very impressive, one would expect the engine would run at least 4 hours in an airplane without a hitch. Many did not. The transition from car to airplane is not simple, don't make it should like it is.

David, as I said, Russell's EG 33 is dead stock internally and has never been apart to my knowledge. I talked to him at Reno this year.
 
I now have just over 700 hours on my Eggenfellner EZ30 H6 with Subaru stock ECU I have 99+% confidence in the engine and always\constantly worry about the Prop gear box (I currently have the gearbox on a 50 hour lubrication cycle and 400 hour tear down\inspect cycle.) To me, the gearbox is the weak link.

Small items in the scheme of airplanes but absolutely enjoy not adding oil ever and not wiping oil off the belly and not having a oily engine. The engine operation is super smooth, super quiet and burns 93 octane ethanol auto fuel. Never have issues with starts. I actually like the water cooled aspect in that I do not worry about preheats, shock cooling etc. I know I am a bit heavier, slower than I should be but I knew this going into the project.

Not sure I would do it over again, I have enjoyed the experience, learned much more than I planned and still probably know much less than I need to know and wasted a lot of money.... I still enjoy tweaking it and am certain there are cooling drag reduction opportunities on my current setup that I want to explore.

Building a 10 now, this will have a Lycoming but still plan to use auto type fuel injection and ignition systems.

Got to love experimental aviation!
 
As Ross points out, there are numerous Subaru conversions successfully flying.
The key to that success though is that the majority (probably all) of those were built by someone who already had some background with engines and some knowledge of what it would take to make it work (and the rest they researched and learned along the way)
The problem with that is that the majority of people that have installed a Subaru engine (in RV's anyway) did so on the premise that they were purchasing a fully engineered and tested engine installation kit, and that all they had to do was follow the installation instructions and they would have a FWF installation that was modern/state of the art tech., at a lower cost than a typical Lycoming installation (who wouldn't want that?).

Ross, I am sure you can agree that that has never been reality.

Hi Scott, it has been my observation over the years that the enthusiasm with which individual builders initially embrace auto conversions is inversely proportional to their understanding of things mechanical. The gear-heads tend to understand the potential problems and are therefore more reluctant to go down that path.

Some people continue to claim that Subaru conversions can be made to work but of the 6 projects that I know of personally not one has been successful and most of them resulted in catastrophic failures.

I look at it this way. Despite what many people say about Jan Eggenfellner's business practices it would be stupid to say that he didn't eventually know a lot about Subaru conversions. He formed Eggenfellner Aviation in 1994 and by 2003 he had manufactured and sold 298 Subaru conversion kits to RV builders alone. By the time he went bankrupt in 2009 he had moved through several Subaru engine models and 3 generations of prop reduction gear boxes. And yet despite having designed and manufactured hundreds of Subaru conversions, and despite the presumably immense knowledge gained along the way, he was unable to achieve a reliable product.

That leads me to surmise that a single individual working in his backyard shed on a one-off Subaru conversion with limited resources is unlikely to fare better than Jan Eggenfellner who had the benefit of personal experience (and field experience) accumulated along the way to producing literally hundreds of conversions.
 
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Where can the average guy buy one?

This is the key phrase. Subaru, and auto conversions in general can work. There are really two problems. 1. No solid packages available. 2. Lack of general knowledge.
If you install a Lycoming or Continental, there is a ready to hand large body of knowledge and people who likely have run into many of the same issues.
Basically, the road to knowledge is well plowed....

Tim
 
I look at it this way. Despite what many people say about Jan Eggenfellner's business practices it would be stupid to say that he didn't eventually know a lot about Subaru conversions. He formed Eggenfellner Aviation in 1994 and by 2003 he had manufactured and sold 298 Subaru conversion kits to RV builders alone. By the time he went bankrupt in 2009 he had moved through several Subaru engine models and 3 generations of prop reduction gear boxes. And yet despite having designed and manufactured hundreds of Subaru conversions, and despite the presumably immense knowledge gained along the way, he was unable to achieve a reliable product.

That leads me to surmise that a single individual working in his backyard shed on a one-off Subaru conversion with limited resources is unlikely to fare better than Jan Eggenfellner who had the benefit of personal experience (and field experience) accumulated along the way to producing literally hundreds of conversions.

Actually the bad business practices is what from a 3rd party perspective prevented Jan from ever producing a package which had a really good reputation.
From the outside, Jan was making changes which were not needed to the engine, and then not putting enough effort into making changes to the single points of failure which if there were reliability problems could have catastrophic consequences. e.g. PRSU....

One of the crazier ideas I have always had was to get away from computers and do something in aviation. As such, one fascination I have had is the auto conversion market. I have sat down and built out a financial plan and business model with a couple of different engineers. I always went to guys who had built and fly auto conversion planes. No matter how we sliced it, unless I wanted to work for free doing all the design work; and spending at least three to four times the effort documenting every detail, then many more hours figuring out the best way to keep it simple and repeatable, there was no way to make the engine cheaper than an existing Lycoming.

So until someone is that generous with their time and knowledge; or we can convince a bunch of builders who are all near each other to do this together to spread the load; snake oil salesman will continue to sell packages which do not meet expectations.

Tim
 
Hi Scott, it has been my observation over the years that the enthusiasm with which individual builders initially embrace auto conversions is inversely proportional to their understanding of things mechanical. The gear-heads tend to understand the potential problems and are therefore more reluctant to go down that path.

Some people continue to claim that Subaru conversions can be made to work but of the 6 projects that I know of personally not one has been successful and most of them resulted in catastrophic failures.

I look at it this way. Despite what many people say about Jan Eggenfellner's business practices it would be stupid to say that he didn't eventually know a lot about Subaru conversions. He formed Eggenfellner Aviation in 1994 and by 2003 he had manufactured and sold 298 Subaru conversion kits to RV builders alone. By the time he went bankrupt in 2009 he had moved through several Subaru engine models and 3 generations of prop reduction gear boxes. And yet despite having designed and manufactured hundreds of Subaru conversions, and despite the presumably immense knowledge gained along the way, he was unable to achieve a reliable product.

That leads me to surmise that a single individual working in his backyard shed on a one-off Subaru conversion with limited resources is unlikely to fare better than Jan Eggenfellner who had the benefit of personal experience (and field experience) accumulated along the way to producing literally hundreds of conversions.

You can get wrong answers from bad data, but you can also get wrong answers with bad analysis.

You saw 6 bad results, and assumed that all results were bad. Ross sees your 6 bad results, and hundreds (possibly thousands) of good results. I look at the 6 bad & hundreds of good, and see 6 individuals that were less than capable of doing an auto conversion in an a/c. The fact that all 6 you saw got bad results is the nature of statistics. At some point, you will roll 6 'snake eyes' in a row, too.

You see one individual who stole money from hundreds of people by marketing defective products, then attempted (often successfully) to force those same people to buy replacement products that were also defective, and assume that a *skilled* backyard designer/builder can't build a working system when a brilliant snake oil salesman who's also a *bad* designer/builder can't build the same thing. I submit that your analysis is faulty.

I've said this many times in the past: *Statistically*, there's an inverse relationship between people's willingness to try an alt engine, and their qualifications to achieve it. The operative word is 'statistically'. Each attempt should be evaluated on its own merits. But there are, unfortunately, more unqualified people trying it than qualified people, so the statistical results look bad.

The issue is almost never the engine. It's the people doing the design/installation/maintenance.
 
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Yes, lots of conversions have failed the test of time and conversely many are working well years later and you hear nothing about them, just as a Lycoming with no problems doesn't make the news. When something goes wrong with either, they make the news as in last month with the ECI disintegration and subsequent successful forced landing http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=152627.

Closed minded people often condemn what they don't understand as all bad, refusing to acknowledge any successes even when presented with information which contradicts their beliefs.

This is common in the Lycoming/ Cert vs. Alt engine debate and this is why people like Russell Sherwood's accomplishments are so important. You can deny all you want but this photo and Russell's record is reality. When the flag drops, the BS stops as we say and Russell has caused the Lycoming advocates to become very silent in SARL. Nothing like a dose of reality. The late Bob Axsom who was big in SARL, once mentioned he had new found respect for Russell's Subaru powered airplane. It changed his opinion of car engines in airplanes. BTW, the left most trophy is the "Kick Butt" award given to the competitor who utterly destroys his competition- all Lycoming and Continental powered in this case.



Many Lycoming people still come up with excuses and ludicrous explanations, simply not believing this. Gary Spencer with his Ford powered canard has done the same thing racing and has around 2000 trouble free hours.

I've posted numerous examples of successful auto conversions over the years here, yet some people still refuse to believe it's possible. We have some RV pilots on this forum who have over 600 hours on their Subes with little trouble to date, one has posted in this thread. I know a number of other RV flyers with Sube power, most working just fine. I posted this a few months back: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=147804 and this: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=68887 which showed higher speeds than Lycoming powered RV7s on similar fuel burns.

Haters gonna hate as they say. No changing that in some people. Auto conversions are not for everyone and probably not for you. No reason for the hate, just ignore it all if it bothers you.

Anyway, this debate will never end. Let's get back on track and offer the OP any help with getting a Lycoming in his RV.
 
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What does Race 84 use for a PSRU?

Links/story website?

Marcotte?

http://www.sdsefi.com/air14.html

You can search the SARL site here for results: http://sportairrace.org/sarl/

Search Russell Sherwood Glasair on YouTube, he has a number of good videos up.

Yes, he uses a Marcotte M-300 PSRU just like me after failures of Ross and GAP planetary drives. Neither of us have had any internal issues with our drives and neither has been taken apart since new.

You won't find many big stories about Race 84. Russell prefers to prove what he's done by putting on the cross country miles and winning his class in SARL, over and over. Russell is a modest guy but he does like to prove the naysayers wrong by beating them in the races.

Any other questions, just PM me. Let's get this thread back on track.
 
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Sorry, thread drift

Small items in the scheme of airplanes but absolutely enjoy not adding oil ever and not wiping oil off the belly and not having a oily engine. The engine operation is super smooth, super quiet and burns 93 octane ethanol auto fuel. Never have issues with starts. I actually like the water cooled aspect in that I do not worry about preheats, shock cooling etc. I know I am a bit heavier, slower than I should be but I knew this going into the project.

Steve, I would like to know what you mean by "super quiet", or what have you done to make it quiet. Mine is quiet at idle and low rpm, but at takeoff and cruise (say, 4500rpm) its super loud. I have dual mufflers too (supertraps, I think)
 
Steve, I would like to know what you mean by "super quiet", or what have you done to make it quiet. Mine is quiet at idle and low rpm, but at takeoff and cruise (say, 4500rpm) its super loud. I have dual mufflers too (Supertraps, I think)

Hi Jeff,

To be honest, as high power levels I have never heard my airplane external to the cockpit as no one has ever flown my plane but me. I suspect (have not measured) it is lower in decibels compared to other engines external to the cockpit as I have been told it is very quiet in the pattern by others. I agree with you, on the ground it is much quieter at idle vs. takeoff power level. I always use noise canceling headphones. It maybe my calibration point is biased as it has been many years since I have flown behind a Lycoming.

It does seem to quieten up a bit after I get away from the ground. I am also running two Supertrapp mufflers, the only mod I did to the mufflers is to replace the inside fiberglass material with stainless steel wool.

(You are not by chance the person who bought Any Parrish's plane are you?)

Steve
 
Hi Jeff,

To be honest, as high power levels I have never heard my airplane external to the cockpit as no one has ever flown my plane but me. I suspect (have not measured) it is lower in decibels compared to other engines external to the cockpit as I have been told it is very quiet in the pattern by others. I agree with you, on the ground it is much quieter at idle vs. takeoff power level. I always use noise canceling headphones. It maybe my calibration point is biased as it has been many years since I have flown behind a Lycoming.

It does seem to quieten up a bit after I get away from the ground. I am also running two Supertrapp mufflers, the only mod I did to the mufflers is to replace the inside fiberglass material with stainless steel wool.

(You are not by chance the person who bought Any Parrish's plane are you?)

Steve

Ok, other things could make a difference too: interior, prop, headset, etc...
I've not heard mine from the ground either, but several people have commented that it a very distinct sound and they know when I'm flying around.

I built the plane, bought the engine from Paul K, radiators/cowling from Caleb L, and prop from Dee W.

So, to tie this to the original post, Paul and Caleb have already switched to a lycoming, and Dee is in the process. All 3 are on this forum. (might be some kind of hint there :eek:, but it was not due to failures)
 
Subby

Mr Sherwood and Mr Farnham seem to missing a GIANT business opportunity to provide complete Subby proven firewall forward packages as reliable as Lycoming with more power on less cubic inches.I and many others are wanting a modern engine that is better than 1930 tech and it should be no problem in 2017 to 87 years later market that engine please provide facts and were to buy.
Thanks Bob
 
Electric

Mr Sherwood and Mr Farnham seem to missing a GIANT business opportunity to provide complete Subby proven firewall forward packages as reliable as Lycoming with more power on less cubic inches.I and many others are wanting a modern engine that is better than 1930 tech and it should be no problem in 2017 to 87 years later market that engine please provide facts and were to buy.
Thanks Bob
I predict that the next Lycoming replacement will be an electric engine, not a better Subaru package.
 
Mr Sherwood and Mr Farnham seem to missing a GIANT business opportunity to provide complete Subby proven firewall forward packages as reliable as Lycoming with more power on less cubic inches.I and many others are wanting a modern engine that is better than 1930 tech and it should be no problem in 2017 to 87 years later market that engine please provide facts and were to buy.
Thanks Bob

No. Sarcasm in this case does not help.
The business model does not support such a contention as I stated earlier. You need to charge close to current market prices. At which point you lose the primary incentive for many to consider an auto-conversion. Price.

Tim
 
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