Has any one use one of these in their RV? One side of my brain says they are good deals while the other side says you get what you paid for.
http://www.westernskyways.com/gator_engines.asp
http://www.westernskyways.com/gator_engines.asp
...Next thing you will probably want to do is go to a Chevrolet dealer and buy an engine for your plane.
At $12,700 for a new O-360-A1A with carb, mags, warranty and test cell certification, I'd be all over that like white on rice. At the very least, a phone call couldn't hurt. Heck, at that price I'd make a trip to Montrose to watch 'em build it.
DO NOT BUY AN AIRBOAT ENGINE! I lived in South Florida for a while and airboat guys would hang around the FBO I worked at, taking any enigne part we would throw away. They would even buy cylinders from us that had physical defects or to low of a compression to pass on a certified airplane. I have seen cases put back together with JB Weld and run just fine on an airboat, but most of the parts they use/buy are not good for aircraft use. As Build9A said, they ride them hard and put them away wet big time.
On a side note. It was interesting to talk to them and see the things they would do. For instance, they would use JB weld on case cracks and they would actually hold. Makes you think if some of the repairs they would do would actually hold up on aircraft (although they do not go through the elevation and pressure changes that aircraft do). We tend to scrap parts on aircraft when they reach a certian limit, but these airboat guys run them until they literally fall apart and it is amazing to see just how far this stuff can go.
Then put one in your airplane and tell us how things worked out!Listen to you guys. You sound like the certified guys yammering about the home built planes. No doubt someone here has the savvy to ask the right questions and discern whether this is doable. When most home builts struggle to put 50 t0 100 hours per year on their ride this might be an option. Face it, in ten years the biggest enemy will be rusty cams and cylinders not whether the motor was perfect to start. My PPL trainer had 7500 hrs. on it. I would wager it was mostly to service limits not balanced, blueprinted etc., etc. I'm still fond of it's service to my cause.
Then put one in your airplane and tell us how things worked out!
When the engine sells for LESS than the parts, YOU KNOW they are using discarded, red tagged parts.
Now, the XL360 sounds legit and it worth checking out. You've got to remember that there are many people on this forum who, like most of us way back when, don't really know much about engines and where they come from, and the difference between junk, overhaul, rebuilt, and new. I'd hate to see someone put a cheap engine on their RV thinking it was as good as a new engine, only to find out later that it's not. I agree that I think their web page advertising is most unfortunate and maybe they should seperate aircraft worthy engines from the airboat ones.