Thanks for your reply to this old thread Cooljugs. Please take my following post as friendly, constructive criticism. I believe there is some merit in liquid cooled heads for these engines.
First a couple things about my background:
35 years professionally developing/ testing/building/racing turbocharged automotive engines, including designing and building my own flow bench and engine dynomometer. 20 years manufacturing and supplying programmable EFI systems for automotive applications and aircraft worldwide, including the 2010 Reno Sport Class winner and multiple national race winners and record holders worldwide.
I have also been flying a Subaru powered RV6A for 10 years and people know me here as a water cooled advocate. I am no fan of air cooled engines but I am a realist when it comes to comparing technical specs/ merits between engine types or newer technologies.
I think many people have read your website here long ago and since it has not been updated for 12 years, there is nothing new there. A word of friendly advice with regards to business in this era- nobody will take your products seriously when you have not updated your website in 12 years. They will have no confidence to invest or even take you seriously.
Secondly, another word of business advice about developing a product such as this- the experimental market is your best chance to get the ball rolling for you, prove and improve the product at the lowest costs. Many companies have proven this and many others who have tried to gain certification first without some time and experience in the experimental market first have gone nowhere, usually drowned in development costs and debt with nothing produced and not a dime of revenue.
Third, your claims seem pretty amazing to me from a technical standpoint:
1. The present air cooled Lycoming and Continental engines demonstrate some of the best BSFC figures of ANY SI engine of ANY type at high power settings- as low as .375 running LOP. While the 3 point CR increase will improve thermal efficiencies a bit, I find it implausible that liquid cooled heads with a new chamber and higher CR will improve the TE 35%.
2. The claimed 50-65 hp increase on a 360 cubic inch engine also seem implausible using the existing bottom end and camshaft designs at the same rpm. I am highly doubtful that you can increase the VE to way over 100% on a basic Lycoming 360 with just head mods. Again, the CR increase will show 10-15 more hp probably but the rest has to come from processing a lot more mass flow through the engine. This would be very impressive indeed. NASCAR, GM, Ford, F1 etc. would be happy to have someone with your talents.
3. Projected TBOs are meaningless in my view without at least 3 or 4 running examples in actual aircraft use going the full time without problems. I am just guessing here and I may be wrong (correct me if so), but I doubt you have actually flown one of your engines 4-5000 hours without taking it apart.
Your best chance to prove what you say here is to put one of your engines in something like an RV7 and take it to the Van's factory for a detailed and fair side by side fly off comparison with a standard RV7. They have done these with Subaru, Wankel and WAM diesel powered RVs and the results have been very interesting in each case. This will give you impartial results to put on your website and if you can do what you claim, I believe you'll have some serious interest in your products.
People in the experimental and certified engine markets have seen plenty of amazing claims about new engines and most don't hold water and many have been burned buying into unproven designs so your will see a lot of understandable skepticism until you can show you can deliver the goods.
I wish you the best with your project!
Linear Mode
