Forum,
I've been doing a lot of research and reading about using a subaru engine in my project and one thing that I'm struggling with is the complexity of alternative engines. Face it, there is just a lot more to fail when your dealing with EFI controller, Ignition system, electric fuel pumps, alternator, battery, cooling system, turbos, etc.
I do agree that the basic subaru engine is far more reliable than a lycoming, but I'm not sure it is when you include all of the other systems it depends on. A gravity fed carburated lycoming is so simple that there isn't really anything to fail shy of catastrophic failure like dropping a valve or breaking a crank, where the NTSB is riddled with cases where a subaru engine lost power because of wiring or a fuse or some small dependency that doesn't exist in the lycoming.
At this point I'm trying to determine which poison I want:
Lycoming and the noise, vibration, pain in the neck cold weather operation, expense, and risk involved with using a 50 year old case and crank.
or
Subaru and the complexity of the installation and massive amount of dependencies.
I'll summarize my concerns with an example: Bud Warren. An A&P who makes a great gear drive, that has shown to be reliable, and uses a chevy engine which is also shown to be reliable, still lost his plane because of a failure in the system. Granted, the fuel line could have failed on the lycoming too, however, it goes to show you that the installation of the system could compromise it, and generally speaking, the system required to run a lycoming is MUCH simpler.
Anyone have some thoughts on this? I really really want to run a subaru since I live in Alaska and having heat in the cab would be wonderful, but this place isn't at all tolerant of failure and I'm concerned about the complexity of running a subaru engine.
Thanks,
schu
I've been doing a lot of research and reading about using a subaru engine in my project and one thing that I'm struggling with is the complexity of alternative engines. Face it, there is just a lot more to fail when your dealing with EFI controller, Ignition system, electric fuel pumps, alternator, battery, cooling system, turbos, etc.
I do agree that the basic subaru engine is far more reliable than a lycoming, but I'm not sure it is when you include all of the other systems it depends on. A gravity fed carburated lycoming is so simple that there isn't really anything to fail shy of catastrophic failure like dropping a valve or breaking a crank, where the NTSB is riddled with cases where a subaru engine lost power because of wiring or a fuse or some small dependency that doesn't exist in the lycoming.
At this point I'm trying to determine which poison I want:
Lycoming and the noise, vibration, pain in the neck cold weather operation, expense, and risk involved with using a 50 year old case and crank.
or
Subaru and the complexity of the installation and massive amount of dependencies.
I'll summarize my concerns with an example: Bud Warren. An A&P who makes a great gear drive, that has shown to be reliable, and uses a chevy engine which is also shown to be reliable, still lost his plane because of a failure in the system. Granted, the fuel line could have failed on the lycoming too, however, it goes to show you that the installation of the system could compromise it, and generally speaking, the system required to run a lycoming is MUCH simpler.
Anyone have some thoughts on this? I really really want to run a subaru since I live in Alaska and having heat in the cab would be wonderful, but this place isn't at all tolerant of failure and I'm concerned about the complexity of running a subaru engine.
Thanks,
schu