Engine Replacement Options

[ALMARTON]

Nice input Russ!

You know I am thoughtfully considering to buy XP360 instead Lycoming IO360 it look a bit of a gain for me (slight better power and less fuel consumption)

Originally Posted by AK4x4

Superior air parts was started in the late 1960's and grew until they made FAA/PMA replacement parts for most Lycoming and allot of Continental products.
Thielert AG flush with cash from their IPO purchased Superior Air Parts. Superior built and certified an in-house Lyclone (Superior Vantage) and a line of experimental (XP) engines based off the PMA parts lines plus other parts.
Thielert declares bankruptcy due to financial misconduct and fraud. Some Superior cylinder and other technologies sold off as part of Thielert bankruptcy.
Superior Air Parts is sold to Qingdao Haili Helicopters, a Chinese aircraft manufacturer. Qingdao Haili forms Superior Aviation Beijing with Superior Air Parts as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Superior Air Parts resumes operation, including development of new and improved technologies, but most of the company's production is outsourced to various subcontractors, with Superior ensuring that the parts meet their engineering and testing standards for both PMA and experimental parts.
There's the short version, Russ

Would you opine that it still keeps the quality standard being now a China owned with many subcontractors?

Got worried with customer comments and inputs like on this video (look at written comments )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unMh_dkqaHg

It is the first written comment , maybe an isolated opinion but bothers a lot!

Woud you have the source for the Superior History you mentioned. I would love to have more info on that.

Thanks!

[DanBaier]

A variation of #4 is to attend the lycoming piston engine and disassembly / assembly schools - and then do the work yourself. Your savings will be significantly more than the tuition, travel and other costs associated with the school.

Dan

[Henryrifle]

Four and a half months later I am able to answer my own question, at least to some degree. While taking off one evening in late September the engine started to make an unusual ticking/knocking sound just as it left the ground. It was loud enough to be clearly heard despite wearing good headsets. Though the plane was airborne there was plenty of runway left to set it back down. The noise quit at idle but wanting to do as little damage as possible, I taxied the plane back to the hanger and shut it down immediately. (I considered shutting down immediately off the runway and towing the plane back to the hanger but decided against that as it was getting dark, and one of my children was with me.)

A few flying hours prior to this event, the plane cracked an exhaust y-pipe weld. The re-welded pipe didn?t last more than approximately two hours of time before the weld broke again. I had it re-welded a second time only to watch it fail again. I know it is hard to weld contaminated metal, but I expected it to last more than an hour or so. In retrospect, I now know it was trying to tell me something. Additionally, I found what I thought was an unrecognized tool head with a sheared shaft just outside my hanger prior to that flight. I threw it in my trashcan so that it wouldn?t cause any damage to my or anyone?s plane.

I have been working with a fantastic mechanic/pilot/aviation guru getting this plane to where I wanted it to be. He quickly isolated the noise to the number 3 cylinder. Three of the four bottom nuts that secure the cylinder to the case had sheared off, and the fourth was very loose. The knocking sound was the jug banging against the case. The exhaust pipe weld that wouldn?t stay welded was attached to that cylinder.

We decided to have the engine inspected. It had approximately 1400 hours on it. We were presented with several options, but in the end the only two that made sense to me were to purchase a new engine or have mine overhauled. My engine has a strange combination of dynafocal mounts and prop hub size. Buying a new engine would almost certainly mean purchasing a new prop as well. I also thought the overhaul route might be a little less expensive. It wasn?t.

Over the past four days the engine overhaul was completed, remounted using new hardware and a new Vetterman exhaust. One of the guys from the engine shop came out and performed the initial run of the engine today and signed off the log book after a successful first run. There are a few more items to button up and, if the weather cooperates, I?ll be back in the air and performing some of the break-in tasks for the overhauled engine.

It is really interesting to me that someone more experienced than me might have been able to identify what was going on with the engine. The ?tool head with the sheared shaft? was now obviously one of the cylinder nuts with the stud sheared off inside it. The broken exhaust was being vibrated much more than normal. Even if I?d recognized those signs for what they were, I think the end result may have been the same (though I wouldn?t have risked flying a plane with an engine that was in need of some attention and, possibly, a few minutes away from developing into a much more serious problem).

Lesson(s) learned for me. Maybe someone else can benefit from this experience.

Hank

[jpowell13]

Hank,

I have the same narrow deck engine/prop as you. No problems yet with about 500 hrs SMOH. Was wondering what made your overhaul so expensive? Would you buy new if you had a do-over?

John

[Henryrifle]

I opted for new pistons and cylinders and at the end we purchased new mags and exchanged the carburetor rather than rebuilding the one I had. We did this to speed up the process. I also had the engine built and signed off as a certified engine rather than an experimental one. Maybe that was unnecessary but it gives me comfort in knowing that no shortcuts were taken.

Would I do it differently if I had a do-over? Aside from the expense which I would rather have invested in paint and avionics, the worst part of the project was the time the plane was down. It took a couple of weeks to finish the initial inspection. Then came Thanksgiving followed by Christmas which added even more weeks to the rebuild. If I had known how long the plane was going to be grounded, I would have purchased a new engine but at the time I had to commit to a course of action and there was no sense in questioning that decision after I committed to it.

I don't think an overhauled engine is as "good" as a brand new engine but it is as close as you can get and have some reasonable assurance that I won't have to do that again for as long as I own this plane and, most likely, the next owner will get an engine in very good shape.

As a good aviation buddy of mine likes to say, “there are no wrong answers here.” I think in this case I understand what that means.

[jpowell13]

Appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.