Monday a week ago I traveled to Tulsa to assist in the building of my engine for my RV7. The engine started out as a Lycoming Thunderbolt kit engine, standard compression, Superior cold air sump, Airflow fuel injection and Bendix mags and end up as a Barrett IOX-360. When I arrived Tuesday morning all the Barrette prep work had been done and all the parts were laid out, painted and ready to assemble. Allen and I got started around 7:30AM. Allen was great to work with explaining the clearances, torque settings and answering my many questions. It was a long productive 12 hour day but the engine was together. Wednesday the dyno crew took over. The engine was moved from the assembly area to the dyno room and installed on the dyno. There is alot of work just getting the engine ready to run, it took several hours for this. It was great to hear the engine crank for the first time. Then engine was then ran for 1.5 hours and at the end of the run there is a full power run to determine horsepower. The weather was right and my engine came in at 186HP, which was a little higher than what Allen and Rhonda had predicted (183/184hp). By 2:30PM my engine was out of the dyno room loaded in my truck and I was headed back to Southeast Texas. As many people had said in the past Allen and Rhonda are great people to work with and this is very true. For me this was a very positive experience.
Frank Foreman
Frank Foreman
