Weasel

Weasel

Well Known Member
What??? you say.... Thats who I wrote the check to so i guess i have a Continental IO-540 now :eek:

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What is the story?

I am sure I missed the important details on this story.
What is wrong with your Lycoming?
 
I have been asked the following and thought I would share it here in case it would be of benifit to others.

What was your thought process for picking ECI as your engine vendor? Did they offer/do anything in particular you liked? Did they do anything in particular that you didn't like?

I'm in the market for an IO-540 myself, and cannot make up my mind on how to proceed. ECI, Lycoming, Barrett, DIY, etc...
Click to expand...

I previously built my own IO-540 and as I enjoy engine work imensly, it was a lot of fun.

At this point I just do not have the time availible to tear the old engine down and re-build.

Also I put 300+ hrs a year on it so being out of service is tough so availibility was a high priority in the choice.

I had previously set the baffling up for ECI taper fin cyl's and ~9.5:1 compression which worked out very well for cruise efficency.

Here is the list I decided from:

  1. Rebuild myself
  2. Stock new Lycoming from VANs
  3. New Lycoming Thunderbolt
  4. Barrett
  5. New Titan from Continental

Rebuilding myself was eliminated due to time and because work is taking place 185 nautical miles from my shop.

New Lycoming thunderbolt could be customized like I wanted but was eliminated due to Cost and time to have it built.

Barrett eliminated because I wanted to start with a new case this time. and due to time

Stock new from Vans would have required changing the baffeling, Had Presision injection in lue of my prefurred Airflow Performance injection, Cost more than Titan, Did not have Bendix magneto option, Warranty was less than Titan, Only availible with low compression.

Titan had the best price with Airflow Performance injection, Advertised with a great warranty, No extra for ~9.5:1 compression, Good delivery time.

Here are the only cons that I have so-far on the Titan.

Took 5 weeks to get the engine (they said 3-4 weeks when I was making the desision)

Quoted price was for all new. (Engine was delivered with Remanufactured Magneto and when I asked about it they said it would cost more for new and re-man has same warranty....)

Short dipstick length for RV-10 not availible. had to re-use the old dip stick and tube.
 
Back in the Air

I flew the plane 2 weeks ago for the first time with the new engine.

It seemed to run good and break-in is underway. Still some housekeeping that needs to be done under the hood.

There were several changes requiring different length fuel lines and re-routing mixture and throttle brackets. The heater duct is not hooked up right now due to some cables that will need re-routing.

Glad to get it back going. Still working out some of the engine set-up. Dont have any speed/fuel flow compairison yet on the engine and will take more time to break-in.

Ended up spending a lot of time getting it to run correctly at idle and finaly found a microscopic speck of something yellow colored obstructing the fuel meter slot in the flow divider.
 
Update

Have put quite a few hrs on the new engine now and seems to be doing well :cool:

Speed is the same or a hair (1-1.5 knots) faster than the previous Lycoming.

Everything is the same: Compression 9.0:1, Taper fin cyl's, Vertical sump, Ignition same etc. The only difference that I can think of is the fuel injection went from a Bendix to Airflow Performance which has a lower pressure drop through the fuel controller.

Cyl's are still running about 15-20 deg F. hotter than the Lycoming at the same conditions but this may still be getting broke in. Also the new cyl's are painted and the old ones were bare aluminum. (possible lower heat transfer??)

Customer support has been great as of this writing, I hope it continues.

Been running a Titan 340 in the Carbon Cub for quite a few hrs and so-far has been a good engine also.

I spent some time at Fairhope in the Engine shop and came away feeling comfortable with there product. Lets hope they keep it up.
 
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