EGG Service OK ++

[David-aviator]

There have been tell tale oil tracks on the windshield of late and it was traced to the gear reduction unit - as far as I could tell - so the PSRU was removed and shipped to Florida last week. However, it turns out some of the evidence came from a recently overhauled prop, some came from a front seal leak and some from excess of grease used installing the spline drive shaft between the engine and drive unit.

The EGG factory is replacing the front drive shaft because it has production scratches allowing oil to travel under the VITON seal. It wasn't much of a leak but enough to mess things up a bit. (Lycoming guys know of what I speak) The spline shaft drive will be lubricated with anti seize instead of grease (my screw up) and the prop is about finished slinging grease so things ought to be hokey dory very soon once again.

Two thirds of the problem self induced, one third tiny scratches not apparent to normal vision.

Pleased to report good service from the EGG factory.

[rodrv6]

I'll second that! I sent my Gen 2 PSRU back for the upgrade, and the new Gen 3 showed up on my doorstep 4 business days later! I've been very satisfied with Jan.

[frankh]

Are Lycomings supposed to leak?...I must have missed that page in the manual...Oh no!...Maybe its supposed to leak but mine doesn't.

What SHALL I do...sky is falling...along with the stock market..

Sorry couldn't resist

Frank

[Geico266]

Lycomings never leak, they are just marking their territory.

[brianwallis]

The CH-47 guys always said... if it's not leaking, its empty!

Best
Brian

[LifeofReiley]

Jan has produced supposedly over 500 engines. Only a handful are flying. Why? Broken promises... broken parts???

Read some of the horror stories written by poor unsuspecting Egg customers who had no idea of what they got themselves into until way after the fact. I know of several. Brian Meyette has written abundantly about his battles with Jan. He may never fly. Brian is not an isolated case just the most outspoken of the angry Egg customers. When you have one temperamental guy to go to for tech support, how do you work through these difficult issues without blowing a gasket? Most never have. I hear great things about Subie engines from the few flying ones.

I would never personally consider buying an Egg engine unless these criteria are met:

1. The firewall forward package would have to be "complete" and not need hundreds or thousands of hours of refinement to get working. There would be no need to engineer ways around existing cooling and psru issues. "Complete" in my world is ready to bolt on and go. I have no interest in beginning Egg Engineering 101 the day my FWF arrives with specs and updates changing by the moment and Jan's whim.

2. Jan would have to pick an engine (any engine) and produce it for at least three years with all working components. (Duh)

3. The failure rate after those 3 years would have to be within acceptable levels. Very minimal (Duh)

The current flyby night approach is too sloppy for my taste. Smooth consistent power is what I want. Claims about auto engines being lighter and faster are a joke. Auto engines are not lighter or faster (ask van's, I did). Jan's continual redesign has added years and major additional expenses to several projects that I know of and caused other Egg customers to give up scrap Jan?s engine and then install a Lycoming. What a waste of time energy effort and $40k.

Personally, I have nothing against Jan. The way he does business is ruining his credibility and losing his customer base rapidly. I clearly see Jan's business eroding. What a shame and a waste of talent.

[Randy]

I have one of 25 STI engines that Jan sold. To call it a firewall forward product turned in to a sad joke, as it was truly half baked when yanked from the oven and shipped out.

That being said, I knew I was taking my chances when I opted for a "new" engine package that had not been in use. To be honest, there have been many times that I had to admit to myself that I may have made a large and very expensive mistake and truly wished I had just gone with a tried and true Lycasaurus.

I destroyed two of the Gen 2 gearboxes and was grounded for a few months waiting for the new Gen 3 gearbox to get produced. This was very frustrating to deal with during a time when I really wanted to be flying and testing the rest of the airplane. To Jan's credit, he did send me a replacement Gen 2 gearbox at no charge after the first one failed. When the second one failed in the same manner I think it became obvious that the Gen 2 gear box was not going to put up with the power output of the engine I have. At first it was thought that engine to gearbox alignment problems may have caused the first failure. Not so with the second one...

But, I must say, in the end I have a hot rod RV7A and it does a rather nice job of setting my hair on fire when I close the waste gate. It does seem to be working out to be a very nice engine to fly behind and it looks like I will be able to achieve my goal of having IO360 performance, or better, with a smooth running modern power plant. No I am not quite there yet, but I can see it from here

As long as these beefier gearboxes hold up I think things will go well for Jan's business. I have more reasons than most of his customers to be bitter and angry. I guess I just think life is too short for that. Getting my engine package to work was more challenging than I ever dreamed it would be, but then again so ws building the airplane!

I may not like all of Jan's business practices, but in the end he does seem to try to help his customers. When ever I have called with problems he has answered the call and done what he could do to correct things.

I suspect Jan would admit that the batch of STI engines turned in to a real nightmare for his customers and for him. Too bad, as these engines have so much potential for achieving a decent power to weight ratio. When you start out with a factory stock engine that produces 2 HP per cubic inch in the car, the potential is certainly there. I think the package could be lightened up considerably and over time I hope to do just that.

I think his later engine packages are much more of a firewall forward product, simpler and easier to install. They still require considerable extra cowling work to prevent cooling issues, the electrical system needs extra attention, etc., ditto for the fuel system, but most of the reports I hear about the newer engine packages are positive.

Anyone considering such an endeavor needs to be honest with themselves about their own mechanical aptitude and abilities and realize that there are not thousands of them flying so support is only available from Jan's little engine factory and the other folks that have taken the plunge and made it work.

Anyway, I had to chime in here to let you all know that another one of the engines from the STI batch is flying, (that makes 2 of us now) and there are more to come. As long as that gear box holds up, I can say I am glad I have the Subaru up front.

Randy C

[Msletten]

Originally Posted by LifeofReiley

Personally, I have nothing against Jan. The way he does business is ruining his credibility and losing his customer base rapidly. I clearly see Jan's business eroding. What a shame and a waste of talent.

I understand your concerns regarding the relative merits of the Egg package vs Lyco-Continoming, but you inject a great deal of personal observations about Jan, especially having never done business with him (I assume, since you say you would never purchase one of his engines).

Sharing your personal "requirements" is the kind of opinion that others might find helpful when making their own decisions. But then you start adding adjectives such as "fly-by-night," "tempermental" and "sloppy."

I'll ask you personally, have you ever been to Jan's build facility in Florida? Spoken to him personally? Conducted business with him personally?

You began your post by asking whether your perception about the number of Eggenfellner engines flying is due to "broken promises" or "broken parts." This is called "begging the question." You're asking your reader to assume the premise of a problem. Do you know exactly how many engines are flying? You state a "handful." Have you spoken to all those that aren't flying? Do you know why they aren't? Do you know how many of those flying are having problems related to quality/design/engineering/poor installation/bad maintenance/(add your own issue HERE)?

Let me ask you another question, if someone had used the same adjectives you've used to describe Jan in a post describing you, would you take it personally? BTW, adding at the end of your post you have nothing personal against Jan is a bit disengenuous after you just bashed him personally.

Please, please, please people, if this forum is to continue to be the valuable resource it has become for so many we must police ourselves. If you don't have first-hand knowledge of an issue how can you make value judgements?

Ever play the pass-it-along game? One person whispers in another's ear; the second whispers in the third's, and so on, and so on. After 20 or so people the message comes back to the person who started it and -- SURPRISE -- it no longer resembles the original! This first time we played this game (I think it was grade school for me) we were supposed to learn the potential for problems with passing along another's message.

Let those that have the first-hand knowledge post their experience. If you have questions ask. If someone else's experience helps you make a decision that's wonderful. If you think the data can help someone else, then direct them to the posts from THOSE WITH THE FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE.

By all means, share your opinion, that's what this forum is all about. But if you're gonna engage in personal attacks you should do so based on your own experience, not someone else's. And above all, be honest, with others as well as yourself -- don't camouflage your attack with platitudes.

Regards,

Mark

[brian]

Mark said he wanted to see personal, first-hand experience. I can provide plenty of that. As Darrell mentioned, I have written extensively about my experiences with my Eggenfellner STi engine on my builder's web site. See http://brian76.mystarband.net/engine.htm for all the details.

The Eggenfellner STi experience has been a nightmare from the beginning. Jan has quite a tendency to jump onto new things without thinking them through thoroughly. The STi was an extreme example of that. Nearly everything but the block and heads have had to be swapped out, at least once. See here:
http://brian76.mystarband.net/engineMay07.htm#may29
and here:
http://brian76.mystarband.net/engineJun07.htm#jun5
for summaries of the problems.

The biggest problem is that, while Eggenfellner at least stood behind the problems at first, once the PSRU problems became evident, he became more and more surly, unhelpful, and uncooperative about solving the remaining problems. This began in May, '07.

One of my favorite issues (and there are plenty to pick from) is how Eggenfellner inexplicably abandoned the wastegate control that was supposedly on the engines when we bought them. By the time we got the engines, the original wastegate control had been abandoned, with no replacement. We've been abandoned to come up with a wastegate control on our own.

Another favorite is how we found out the STi was overspeeding the supercharger (beyond the manufacturer's specs) even with the Gen 2 PSRU, and even more so with the Gen 3 PSRU. Eggenfellner provided no support, and only surliness, in response to that problem. When an STi owner in Australia decided to look into getting our own larger supercharger pulley to resolve the problem, Eggenfellner even refused to provide any info on where the SC pulley came from, or even how it was attached to the SC.

Jan has also been especially surly, rude, and uncooperative with a couple of the other STi owners. I can understand him being rude to me, as I've publicized a lot of this stuff, but it's even more irritating when he's rude and unhelpful to these other guys. He forced one STi owner to remove his installed engine and ship it ot him for the upgrades, as he said he didn't trust that person to do the work right. He's been especially rude to another customer who has only asked simple questions in the most deferential and polite manner possible. On his list just last week, he was rude and arrogant to that person yet again. The customer simply asked why the list of additional small parts needed for the Gen 3 PSRU hadn't been sent out ahead of time, instead of the usual Eggenfellner method of casually dropping it on everyine at the last mnute, after the PSRUs had already been shipped. Eggenfellner's snotty reply included ""If you are generally an unhappy person, we do not want to hear from you ".

Eggenfellner also seems to have quite a problem accepting responsibility for things. Everything is always the customer's fault.

I could go on and on and on about the problems, but if you want details, see the links. My awful choice of Eggenfellner engine has added 2-3 years to my project time. My wife keeps asking me to just trash the STi and get a Lycoming. One STi customer actually did that - he tossed the Eggenfellner and put in a Lycoming. But not many people can afford to just write off $40K. When I bought this engine, I was under the impression that it was a complete working FWF that could be just bolted onto the firewall and run. Nothing could have further from reality.

As Darrell wrote, one big thing Eggenfellner needs to do is pick a package , stick with it, and refine it, not keep flitting around and jumping onto every new bandwagon that comes along. It appears that he MAY be doing that now with the H6 engines.

Summary - i deeply regret buying Eggenfellner, because of Jan's attitude problems as much as the physical problems, and I certainly can't recommend it to anyone.

[Sam Buchanan]

Mark said he wanted to see personal, first-hand experience. I can provide plenty of that. As Darrell mentioned, I have written extensively about my experiences with my Eggenfellner STi engine on my builder's web site. See http://brian76.mystarband.net/engine.htm for all the details.

Brian,

I followed your links and read your narrative about the Egg saga.

Wow........

I really, really hate to hear of a fellow builder dealing with issues like you detail on your site. Jim Skala is in our local group so I have been following his Egg travails. Yep, Jim is now a Lycoming customer and I fear he will take a huge bath on the Subie sitting in the corner of his shop.

Thanks for sharing your insight on a difficult situation. I hope for all Eggenfellner customers that satisfactory resolutions can be reached...I guess time will tell.