Not sure about your post......Who is going to be first buying this or Who is first developing a 4 cyl engine with 230 hp? ...... my Lycon AEIO-360-EXP developed 245 HP at the test cell according to the test cell report....
 
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Vne isn't a limit, but a goal.

I bet that thing climbs like a bat out of **** on an RV-7/8. Curious what kind of speed it would produce dialed back to 7-8 GPH.
 
I'm already there with the Superior Air Parts XP-400SRE. Crossing my fingers it goes back into production..
 
A lot of the HP increase is due to an RPM limit increase....which is why they're pushing the "lighter recip components" bit in the press releases. OK, maybe that's fine for the crank, but what about props?

mv031161 said:
my Lycon AEIO-360-EXP developed 245 HP at the test cell according to the test cell report....
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...and they say everything is bigger in Texas ;)

Sig600 said:
Vne isn't a limit, but a goal.
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A cleaned up -8 will exceed VNE in level flight on 210 or less.
 
nope

If you've got enough power to exceed Vne (200 KNOTS) in level flight, you're going to be burning a LOT more than 10 gph. You'll be max power and full rich and probably 20 gph.

My '8 will run about 185 knots at full power down low burning about 15 gph. Up high at 75 percent it'll do 175 on 10 per hour or 165 on 7 gph lean of peak.

Remember that power is an expensive way to make speed. The speed only goes up as the cube root of the power increase.
 
dedgemon said:
If you've got enough power to exceed Vne (200 KNOTS) in level flight, you're going to be burning a LOT more than 10 gph. You'll be max power and full rich and probably 20 gph.

My '8 will run about 185 knots at full power down low burning about 15 gph. Up high at 75 percent it'll do 175 on 10 per hour or 165 on 7 gph lean of peak.

Remember that power is an expensive way to make speed. The speed only goes up as the cube root of the power increase.
Click to expand...

Those parameters were on my Giles 202. My Vne is 260 mph (226 knots)
 
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Should be able to displace around 407CI with a IO-375 crank in an IO-390 bore engine... with some 9.5:1's in it... that be getting close to 500hp... By lycon's dyno.
 
500hp out of a 407cubic inch normally aspirated non-geared aircraft engine??? I'm hard pressed pressed to believe 300hp at 2,700 RPM let alone 500!
 
Running the numbers

Just for fun, I decided to run some BMEP numbers. (Brake Mean Effective Pressure. If you're not familiar with this term, Google it for some fascinating reading).

200HP IO360 - 163 PSI
350HP TSIO540 - 190 PSI
400HP IO407 - 288 PSI
500HP IO407 - 360 PSI

Quite an achievment, when the most highly evolved naturally aspirated engines on the planet, such as F1 and Nascar Cup engines come in at about 220 PSI!

BMEP is a great way to evalute HP claims, just as EFPA (Equivalent Flat Plate Area) is a great way to evalute Speed/HP claims of aircraft. Reasonableness, or the lack thereof, becomes immediately obvious.
 
William Slaughter said:
the most highly evolved naturally aspirated engines on the planet, such as F1 and Nascar Cup engines
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I do not know about the PSI of these engines, but as far as sheer horsepower per cubic inch, I do not think the above mentioned engines can come close to a really hot model plane engine.

Here is a link to a review of a Nelson .40, done in 1998.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3819/is_199812/ai_n8815854/pg_4/?tag=mantle_skin;content

7.7 HP/CU IN is pretty good, and this is not a top of the line "unlimited" racing engine-------IIRC, they are cranking out apx 6 HP from a .40 size engine.
 
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Mike S said:
I do not know about the PSI of these engines, but as far as sheer horsepower per cubic inch, I do not think the above mentioned engines can come close to a really hot model plane engine.

Here is a link to a review of a Nelson .40, done in 1998.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3819/is_199812/ai_n8815854/pg_4/?tag=mantle_skin;content

7.7 HP/CU IN is pretty good, and this is not a top of the line "unlimited" racing engine-------IIRC, they are cranking out apx 6 HP from a .40 size engine.
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Look at what they're using for fuel though. You want two wings full of 50 gallons of that stuff?!? I get nervous enough having a few pints in the trunk of my car for my little r/c car.
 
Fuel schmuel.:D

I was only addressing the statement about "most highly evolved naturally aspirated engines on the planet"

I would be more concerned with paying for 60 gal of glo fuel:eek:
 
Not bad

Sig600 said:
Look at what they're using for fuel though. You want two wings full of 50 gallons of that stuff?!? I get nervous enough having a few pints in the trunk of my car for my little r/c car.
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I ran the Nelson engines in my Quickee 500 RC pylon racers. They were designed to run on 15% Nitro, 18% oil and the remaining alcohol. The nitro isn't the problem, it's the alcohol. They were scary!!!

My Barrett/ECI I0 360 dyno'd at 194HP. I haven't got it back on the plane yet. Before I was getting 175kts at 8.4 gph @10,000 feet.

The Barrett/Lycoming I0 390 I'm putting on the new 7 dyno'd at 212 hp. Alan feels I can get a few more out of it when broken in and leaned out.

More engine doing less work. We'll see how the two compare.
 
Allow me to be more specific..

How about "highly evolved naturally aspirated gasoline burning 4 stroke engines.." :D
Horsepower per cubic inch is a different metric, and one that favors 2-stroke engines, small engines, and engines burning nitro. Trifecta for the model airplane engines!
Based on the linked article, the Nelson .40 (assuming that it is a 2 stroke) producing 3 HP @ 29,000 RPM was operating at a BMEP of about 102.

The point of mentioning the F1 and Cup engines was to offer a benchmark for what is reasonably attainable in terms of BMEP, which in turn was meant to offer a benchmark of reasonableness in horsepower claims for a given mix of displacement and rpm.
BMEP is an interesting benchmark, not THE benchmark.
 
Zero Displacement Engine

Ha!, that's a good one. I suppose the only refinement left would be to fabricate the ZDE entirely from unobtanium.
 
Hahaha. I have not been on the list too much lately, but I had to follow this thread through to the last post. I almost spit out my coffee. Thanks for the early morning laugh guys.
 
408 Engine

I designed the 408 engine as a performance upgrade to the existing 360 type engines. The problem of producing more power simply means that component life will start to reduce. My aim was therefore to increase the complete performance envelope. The kit uses the standard 360 bore, however, as the press release stated I do use a completely new type of crank, with heavy weights, new 4 bolt connecting rods and lightweight pistons. The performance of the engine is designed as such so that we develop max power at 2700 rpm. Simply reducing the power to a cruise setting, you have almost the same power as a standard 180 at full rating.
These kits have finished their performance testing. You have an excellent comment about the prop, this is one area that may people forget, we have analysed the vibration characteristics and they are considerably lower than a standard 360. The engine kits have been displayed at Sun 'n' Fun, Oskosh and Reno (2010)

We look forward to serving the aviation community.

Design team.
AC Aero
Tokyo

DanH said:
A lot of the HP increase is due to an RPM limit increase....which is why they're pushing the "lighter recip components" bit in the press releases. OK, maybe that's fine for the crank, but what about props?



...and they say everything is bigger in Texas ;)



A cleaned up -8 will exceed VNE in level flight on 210 or less.
Click to expand...
 
What are you using for a case? I didn't think there was enough room for a 4-bolt rod spin inside the case.
 
Welcome Andrew.

Is there a website where we can view the 408 components and learn more?
 
The crank and the rods just fit, I believe this is the maximum as indeed I had to reduce the stroke to get everything to fit. However to answer your question, the kit is designed to fit the 360 cases, both Lycoming manufactured parts and other manufactures PMA parts should not be a problem.

Regards

AC Aero
 
408 Pics

I don't actually have a site up and running for the 408. I have for your interest uploaded some low resolution pics of the components and the assembly, hopefully this will allow you to see how things have gone together.
The link is here:www.visualdata21.com/vans_airforce

Regards

AC Aero

rocketbob said:
What are you using for a case? I didn't think there was enough room for a 4-bolt rod spin inside the case.
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DanH said:
Welcome Andrew.

Is there a website where we can view the 408 components and learn more?
Click to expand...
 
Thanks, Andrew. I had searched for further info via Google earlier today and found nothing. Even EAS had no information displayed.

Btw, to my partially trained eye, it looks like you have a nice setup there. I wish you great success in your endeavor to bring this concept to fruition.

Joe
 
AC Aero said:
I have for your interest uploaded some low resolution pics of the components and the assembly, hopefully this will allow you to see how things have gone together.
Click to expand...

Thank you Andrew. Could you tell us about the key component, the crankshaft, from a design engineering perspective? Some things are obvious, some not so much so.

Custom components clearly include crank, rods and pistons. Cylinders too, or are they standard parallel valve cylinders?
 
408 Engine

The components are designed to use the standard Lycoming Parallel cylinders. The pictures are of a model that has been sectioned, they are not a new type of cylinder. The crank design is a simple function of how big could I get the engine without increasing the bore. I did actually try for 5" but that was just too much. The stroke is actually 4.948", then I had to deal with the stresses and make sure that as a baseline we would be significantly better than a standard crank and that, if we were to make performance enhancements in the future the crank would still be in an under stress condition. My main objective is to move the whole performance envelope to the right and up, not just one component. The vibration characteristics have been changed to a much lower frequency and this hopefully will allow alternative prop types to be used without limitations. The rods of course had to be designed to fit the package and these had to be designed around a bearing that actually has a much higher load capacity than a standard item. We were able to reduce the weight of the rod by a significant amount because we were able to reduce the weight of the pistons (by about half). My manufacturing method for the pistons is to machine from a solid block of forged alloy 2618 (not a forged piston shape, it is actually a large pancake) and I am usually within +-1 gram after machining.
The benefits are, that there is an overall inertia reduction of about 12.5% although we actually have extra inertia in the crank which keeps the torsional amplitudes down considerably. These are my first range of products and we should see considerable improvement in performance as I increase package specifications, a 260 bhp 4 cylinder engine with inherent reliability, stability and saftey is not far away. Happy July 4th to you all.

Andrew


DanH said:
Thank you Andrew. Could you tell us about the key component, the crankshaft, from a design engineering perspective? Some things are obvious, some not so much so.

Custom components clearly include crank, rods and pistons. Cylinders too, or are they standard parallel valve cylinders?
Click to expand...
 
408 Engine

The current limit (self imposed) is 2700 rpm, so that is well under 2300 feet per min. The package is designed to operate at full continuous load at 3000 rpm and still with a significant safety margin.

Regards

Andrew

rocketbob said:
Andrew this is very cool stuff. What is your piston speed with that stroke at max rated rpm?
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Stock parallel valve cylinders? Andrew, there must be a bit more to this than just a stroke increase.....perhaps valve timing, ignition timing, compression ratio?
 
Good point, considering the major difference in the angle and parallel valve engines is the ability to flow efficiently at high full RPM. I wonder how well this set up breathes? Of course if it works with parallel valve, why wouldn't angle valve, or even cross flow cylinders work? I think the bolt patterns and major dimensions are the same.
 
408 Engine

DanH said:
Stock parallel valve cylinders? Andrew, there must be a bit more to this than just a stroke increase.....perhaps valve timing, ignition timing, compression ratio?
Click to expand...

The capacity increase accounts for some of the performance, what must not be underestimated is the reduction of frictional losses, both from the shell bearings and the pistons skirt. The rod ratio is changed and this allows for better cylinder filling. The remaining performance will be from the cold air induction kit and the fuel injection system. Ignition timing has been altered to suit.

Regards

Andrew
 
408 Engine

osxuser said:
Good point, considering the major difference in the angle and parallel valve engines is the ability to flow efficiently at high full RPM. I wonder how well this set up breathes? Of course if it works with parallel valve, why wouldn't angle valve, or even cross flow cylinders work? I think the bolt patterns and major dimensions are the same.
Click to expand...

The standard parallel valve head on the 408 engine is used. We have developed a piston to suit the angle valve head and this will be tested a little later in the year.
We also have own own version of a parallel head that has a completely different combustion shape along with a complete re design of the valve train, although this is work in progress we have tested the new head arrangement on a 6 cylinder engine and the results are as we had predicted.

I do not know if the "cross flow" cylinders will work, however if the mounting points are the same then it would simply be a case of matching the piston to the combustion shape and if this is identical to the standard parallel head then the standard 408 kit parts will work fine.

Regards

Andrew
 
High HP?

I am still waiting for a new true high performance aircraft engine. The old Franklin 6A-350-C1R made 0.628HP/cubic inch with carburation, 10.5 compression, and an aggressive cam for 220 SAE net horsepower from 350 Cubic inches. Today our modern "high performance" fuel injected XP-408 produces 0.563HP/cubic inch. This is equivilant to a 202HP IO-360 wait a minuet hmm...Lycoming already makes that level of power..Stock. My .02 Russ
 
Sure looks to be a parallel valve engine to me, makes me wonder what an angle valve engine with the same internals could do???
 
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