Turbocharged

Hey everyone. Very early stages for me. Pondering a -14 and wondering about the viability/wisdom of a turbocharged engine. There seems to be very few if any examples of a turbo'd engine application in RVs. Is it too complicated? Runs too hot? Does Vans recommend against it? I'd love to tap your collective knowledge and experience on this subject and hear the pros and cons.

Thanks,

John

Bang for buck.

I would love to Turbo Normalise our RV10, and I could but it is going to be a tight squeeze and expensive. You need to engineer inter coolers and exhaust plumbing, and I have the best mates in that exact business. But I am still NA.

If there were 50-100 firm orders for -10 owners I reckon we could do a good job, but that would be a minimum. As for -14 well there is not yet that many ready to fly. No doubt it will not be long, but how many would want to TN them?

Cheers.

Its because RV's perform well enough without turbos, and there's not an abundance of room in the cowling which makes the task of putting a turbo on difficult.

John:

Welcome aboard!

Bob's statement ("...RV's perform well enough without turbos...)" covers lots of ground; increasing the horsepower available at altitude makes it easier to approach, or exceed, VNE. Vans is against turbomormalizing the RV10, as seen in this article: https://www.vansaircraft.com/pdf/hp_limts.pdf

A search of this site will lead you to a number of discussions on VNE, turbos, and other speed mods to the RV line, many opinions, and some theories.

Good question!

Lycoming offers the relatively modern TIO-360-EXP which is a pretty nice setup. I believe cooling can be addressed fairly easily. Not complicated. More expensive and heavier though.

Van's does not recommend turbos due mainly to Vne concerns.

You'd be hard pressed to make a good case for the turbo 360 vs. the atmo 390 in an RV unless you are based above 5000 feet and regularly fly high or have to fly high in the mountains. Due to the low Vne on most RVs, you can't really take advantage of the extra speed the turbo offers at altitude.

It isn't so much that it's hard to stay below Vne up high with some attention, it's more that if you hit turbulence near those speeds, bad things could happen and flying in the mountains can mean some rough air.

Thanks for the replies, fellas. Your input is pretty much on the mark of what I was thinking.

Cheers.