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What ACE Performance is doing to the 320 lycoming engine

Relentless

Well Known Member
If I learned one thing this past year about engines is that "less is more". If you look at the first 10 R Series engines we are shipping they are R409s and few R360s. The problem is for every customer I have for these performance monsters I have many more that told me when/if we ever apply this tech to the 320 to call them. Well, the phone is going to start ringing!

Andrew and I have gone ahead and pulled the trigger. As I write this post our factory that produces the AX50 cylinder is building up the tooling for the AX40. While this will share all we have learned building the AX50 for 360/409/540s are planning on taking advantage of a few "tweaks" as we build up another set of tooling for this cylinder.

What we visualize is the ability to convert any wide deck 320 engine into a 335cu in, light weight wonder. If Andrew's projections are as spot on as they were on the R360, we are expecting between 170-180hp, same improved cooling, and unleaded fuel compatibility all for scant 225lbs…

We are not sure if this will be available through Titan as of yet but initially we plan on offering these as part of our ACE overhaul upgrade program. I have been running the numbers and feel as part of an overhaul of a 320 the cost to upgrade to a 335 will be in the low 20k's.

Here are some renderings of the 335 with our new sump and pressure recovery plenum.

This pic shows the inegrated fuel injector rail.
s1su1j.jpg



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Note the AX40 plenum can accept either updraft or forward injector servo. Andrew spent many hours getting the flanges in the same position as a stock engine while still creating the area inside the plenum.
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This version should come in around 225lbs!!! That is not much more than the Lycoming 233@115hp :confused:
 
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Nice

I'd be ALL over that. At that weight, you could even offer to de-rate it some to extend TBO, et al.

Will be watching this one!
 
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???

an aircraft engine with actual 21st century technological advances?

it'll never sell!

( now where did I park my dinosaur Wilma?)

congrats, & keep it up!
 
It'd be really cool to put one of these babies on an RV3! I suspect the demand for RV3 kits will be soaring! :D
 
With an O-320 overhaul or replacement on the horizon, I can see this being a strong contender.
 
Kevin, make sure to enlighten the canard guys. Lot more of them in the market for this size.;)

I want one of these for my Long-EZ project. Will be shopping for an engine by year end. It would be the perfect combination of weight/hp for my particular application. Just the news from Relentless I was waiting for!

Greg
 
I want one of these for my Long-EZ project. Will be shopping for an engine by year end. It would be the perfect combination of weight/hp for my particular application. Just the news from Relentless I was waiting for!

Greg

Sounds good, I will be installing first engine on my long ez for testing so should be a no brainer for you. Here is the first R360 I installed for testing. I works great but I had to modify cowling. I agree the 335 will be the perfect engine for any small pusher, we designed the engine to run continuos at 3050 rpm so up there hp should be pretty good:cool:

2lmkl0o.jpg
 
Relentless,

This sounds just like what I am looking for. I have a question. Is there any change to the engine dimensions? I have a core 320 that I would like to install so I can at least do the cowl fitting in advance. You see any problems with that? Looks like the cylinders will need custom baffling and I will have to wait for the engine to fit them?

Thanks,

Jay
 
Same dimensions. The only baffling changes are around the rear of #4 cylinder. This can be done easily with carbon attached to Vans kit…
 
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