First flight with new engine

Katie's RV-4 O-320 went over 2000 hrs SMOH so we started looking for a replacement O-320 for it. Got a great deal on a new overhauled O-360 instead from a fellow VAFer in June. We figured it would take 1-2 months for the conversion. Instead, it took 6 months. We ended up replacing the lower firewall and then everything firewall forward. The old cowl from the 80s wouldnt fit the O-360 so we had to do a new cowl too.
First flight was New Years Day. Everything went great. Interesting that the RV-4 now flies a couple of degrees higher in the tail than before. The O-360 is noticably faster than the O-320 we had. I flew it with the wheel pants, gear leg fairings and intersection fairings off to help keep the speed down. At 2600 RPM it was doing 192 TAS and 200 mph TAS at 2700 RPM. Katie is going to love that!
After landing, we removed the cowl to check for any problems, leaks, rubbing, etc. Found a few drips of oil on the air box.

Congrats, guys! Glad to see you got it back in the air!

Very Cool!

Nice job! More horses is good!

Reading titles, one can draw odd conclusions,

I read " Fist Fight with new engine"

Good to hear it was "first flight" and it went well. I am jealous.

Happy flying.

Katie;
That's a sweet looking RV-4 you got there. Marilyn's RV-4 would look great right next to it at a fly in!
How many women have RV-4s now?

Katie & Thomas,
Congratulation to the finished conversion! Looks great! I would be interested to see some FWF pictures, as I am installing a o-360 as well.

Congrats! Be sure to give us comparison numbers once you put all the slippery stuff back on. Enjoy the new fire-breather!

Good Show Katie & Tom!!! That's what I want to do when my 320 gets too old. I'm impressed with your improvement.
Happy flying!!

Thomas, your conversion sounds interesting to me, since I almost decided to go with a IO-360. If/when you will be ready, may you share with us please comparison speeds between both configurations?

Is yours a fixed pitch of C/S?

Ciao.
Camillo

Thanks everyone. I will get comparison speeds after I get the engine broke in and phase 1 time flown off (2 hrs left) and the wheel pants, intersection and gear leg fairings reinstalled. I have a new set of pressure recovery wheel pants to install but may hold off on them for a while. It is faster with wheel pants off that the O-320 at same RPM was with wheel pants on. Chts are running hotter and fuel burn is higher. The prop is the Sensenich CM7 metal series with an 85 degree pitch. The Sensenich prop for the O-320 had a max rpm restriction of 2600 so we never ran the engine faster. The sweet spot on the O-320 was at 2350 RPM at 168 mph at 6.5 GPH. Noise and vibration levels were way decreased. It will be interesting to see what the sweet spot turns out to be for the O-360.

That too

BillL said:

Reading titles, one can draw odd conclusions, I read " Fist Fight with new engine" Good to hear it was "first flight" and it went well. I am jealous.
Happy flying.

Click to expand...

and I have the scabs on my fists to prove it.

RV4chick got the RV-Grin again

when she flew her RV-4 with 30 more horses than the last time she flew it.