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Moving engine from certified plane

dicel87

Well Known Member
I was reading the post about 2 seat production aircraft and saw someone mention the Grumman Tiger as a good platform to fly in preparation for RV ownership. I had never really looked at it but I did some surfing around and I have to say that its a really good looking plane and there is a pretty large and active owner group out there.

So my thought was to get a Tiger, build hours, while building an RV. Then when it came time for my RV engine just take it off of the Tiger....O-235 is a recommended RV9 engine, and it will be a very known quantity to me after flying behind it.

Is that swap legal to do?

And assuming it is (this may seem to be a dumb question) but what are the chances of selling an aircraft minus the engine? :confused:

Thanks
Scott
5:25pm and I outta the office and off to ground school!
 
Swap

The swap is legal. Lots of RV engines come from certified AC. The Tiger would lose value at least equivalent to the cost of a new engine. I would do what you are contemplating but probably would discover that the economics of it would be better if I bought an engine for the RV and sold the Tiger intact. Most pilots don't like project planes. The folks that like projects like them because they can buy cheap, fix them up and sell big(er). So someone would buy your Tiger but they would be looking for a "good deal."
 
Correction

Scott,

The Tiger is a 4 place and has the O-320 (I think), the Cheetah has an O-360 but the 2 place AA-1 Yankee and later Lynx has the O-235 you are thinking of.

BTW, the AA-1, which is what the Tiger and Cheetah were derived from was based on a homebuilt design by Jim Bede who also designed the BD-5, BD-5J, BD-10 and a number of other aircraft..

Why can't someone take an RV and turn it into a production airplane?
 
One word: Certification.

The real question is; after investing what it would take to certify the RV design for sale as a turnkey GA aircraft, how many people would pay $300,000 for a two-place RV?

In fact, the sale price would probably be even more than that. Consider that the Mooney design has already amortized a good amount of it's certification costs already, and it still sells for $280k bare bones minimum (last time I looked).

Of course, if not for our litigious legal system the way it is, we might today have been able to buy a new Mooney for about what we put into one of our loaded up RV's. :rolleyes:
 
Actually the Tiger has the O-360. It an O-360-A4K to be exact. You could use this engine in an RV but it would require changing the oil sump and carburetor. The A4K has a horizontal HA-6 type carb mounted pointing off the back of the sump. The O-360 for the Van?s uses a vertical sump and a MA-4-5 carb. I don?t think the HA-6carb will fit in the mount or nacelle on an RV. Maybe some others can comment on that. I know there is no FWF kit for that engine so even if it would fit you would be on your own as far as a lot of the FWF stuff goes. You might also have to change the engine driven fuel pump to fix a possible engine mount interference fit with the pump on the A4K and the Vans mount. Other then those two items it should work fine. This engine would be limited to fixed pitch use, as the crankshaft used in the A4K is not possible to configure for constant speed use. I would agree that it would probably be more economical to leave the Grumman intact and then buy a engine for the RV but who knows may be it wouldn't too.
The O-320-E2G used by the Grumman models that have an O-320 will work in a RV as far as I know but the carb will be located in a bit of a different spot then with the carb and engine that Van's sells. I also think you may need to specify a different mount for this style engine but I am not sure. You will need to check on that.
Good Luck,
Mahlon
 
Find an O-320-D1A or equivalent for RV-9A.

That's what I did. I went with the ECI Titan built NEW by Penn Yan Aero Service. The Titan 320 has extra oil nozzles and O-rings to minimize the leaks around those bolts that hold the crank case together. That is the same mod that AeroSport Power and Mattituck put in their engines, but it is "built-in" at the factory on the ECI engine. Every part on the engine is PMA approved and interchanges with any Lycoming part on certified airplanes. But the cost is much better. The name plate on the crank case says Penn Yan Aero XE-320. You can see it on this web page: http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a054.htm for the details.

I looked at all three of those vendors and found the Penn Yan deal was the best with freight included. I have a zero-time 160HP engine that has been run 1.5 hours on a test stand at all power settings. It came setup for a constant speed prop. I ordered the prop from Van's and it shipped direct from Hartzell.

The firewall forward kit, mount, and carburetor cowling fit like a glove. The windshield is on and my time to go to the airport is getting closer.

Jerry K. Thorne
East Ridge, TN.
RV-9A N2PZ
www.n2prise.org
 
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