Alternative Engines Volume 3

I just received my copy of the Contact! compilation book Volume 3 in the mail.

This contains many articles from builders who have rolled their own engine conversions and documented the process, successes and failures. Lots of Subaru, Wankel and Chev V6/V8 installations, tech articles on cooling systems, engine development papers from GM Powertrain and Chrysler engineers, electrical, EFI, PSRUs, diesels etc.

Very informative reading for the gearhead and the quality of the articles just gets better. Conversions have come a long ways since the Volume 1 days as more knowledge is shared. Well worth the asking price IMO.

Ross- Do you have ordering info?

You can get in touch with Pat Panzera who is the editor: editoratcontact magazine.com. Change the at to @. I don't want to subject him to the spambots.

Thanks I'll have to get it. Probably would have helped before the build!

rv6ejguy said:

I just received my copy of the Contact! compilation book Volume 3 in the mail.

This contains many articles from builders who have rolled their own engine conversions and documented the process, successes and failures(snip)

Click to expand...

Ross, one thing we sometimes miss is the importance of reports of failures as well as successes. In medicine this is a significant problem with research called "publication bias."

Your careful and open documentation of your cooling issues and inflight power loss are likely to help keep somebody else out of trouble.

Many of the Contact! articles document both minor and major failures along the path of discovery and there are plenty in some cases. We can learn as much from failures as we can from successes in this area.

There have been some great info on PSRU failues, torsional vibration, valve train failures and how to prevent your OE Subaru ECU from shutting down. Many of these led to forced landings which is the hardest way to gain knowledge.

Most articles seem more honest than some in the past which seemed to paint a pretty rosy picture of alternative engines without many downfalls. I do have a hard time believing some of the empty weight and performance claims by some. I don't buy an LT-1 powered RV8 weighing under 1300 lbs. and I don't buy an atmo EJ22 powered RV easily climbing at 2000 fpm. I must be doing something seriously wrong with mine. Perhaps some calibrated scales and instruments are in order for some of these experimenters.

As always, take the info with a grain of salt in many instances but there is still a wealth of info here. People still have their opinions and biases with things like carbs vs. FI and redrive types but something useful can be gleaned from almost all the articles.

There have been a few good successes along the way with impressive performance and reliability documented by some builders.