Jerry Cochran

Jerry Cochran

Well Known Member
Given that Van's prices for this engine are north of $45k, what should one expect to pay for a mid time (100Ohr) engine or an overhauled first run?

Any RV-10 builders want to weigh in on this? Or is everyone putting in brand new?

Engine gurus?

Thanks,

Jerry
 
I have seen half-time engines on the range of $20-30,000. You can usually find a core for $5-10,000 and the overhaul price is around $26-30,000, IIRC. if you have a good shop do the overhaul you will likely end up with an engine that is better than new as far as smoothness, balance and performance. Barrett builds a fantastic engine. New may be a little better as far as resale value goes, but a big name overhaul shop is pretty close. There are a lot of -540's out there, but they are a little harder to find now because of the RV-10.
 
When I was looking to replace my engine, I found prices were roughly based on hours remaining.

Thet reality drove me towards a new kit engine.

In your case, you might want to buy a core, find some local help, and rebuild it yourself.

Good luck!
 
I've done exactly that for a customer. I bought an "overhauled" engine on Barnstormers, opened it to inspect through the cylinder openings, put on new cylinders, mags, starter and fuel injection and had a good running engine for less than $30,000.
 
O-540 Pricing

A year or so ago, Bob Barrows, Bearhawk designer, quoted me around $24K for an overhauled engine. You might give him a call.

Jerry Folkerts
 
Atlanta Air Salvage had a 1600 +/- hour engine from a fuel exhaustion accident they were willing to sell for $10 or $12k sometime last year. It was a 250 hp engine, but could have been changed to a 260 with fairly simple mod's at overhaul.
 
Often the difference between 250hp and 260hp is a difference in red-line rpm. Some engines have the right parts to run 2700rpm and others only have the parts for 2575 rpm. The one I was referring to before had connecting rods that were rated to only handle the lower rpm, so that engine stayed at 250hp. It started out as a 235 hp engine at 7.2:1 compression at 2575, but increased to 250 hp at 8.5:1 at 2575.

The D4A5 which Van's sells is 260hp at 8.5:1 and 2700rpm. The C4B5 from an Aztec has the correct counterweights and connecting rods to handle the same.

On that salvaged engine, as long as it didn't have a prop strike, then that sounds like a good deal. You could get flying with it as is, or top overhaul it easily, then do an overhaul down the road, which you will want to be saving up for from day one.
 
Jesse said:
Often the difference between 250hp and 260hp is a difference in red-line rpm. Some engines have the right parts to run 2700rpm and others only have the parts for 2575 rpm. The one I was referring to before had connecting rods that were rated to only handle the lower rpm, so that engine stayed at 250hp. It started out as a 235 hp engine at 7.2:1 compression at 2575, but increased to 250 hp at 8.5:1 at 2575.

The D4A5 which Van's sells is 260hp at 8.5:1 and 2700rpm. The C4B5 from an Aztec has the correct counterweights and connecting rods to handle the same.

On that salvaged engine, as long as it didn't have a prop strike, then that sounds like a good deal. You could get flying with it as is, or top overhaul it easily, then do an overhaul down the road, which you will want to be saving up for from day one.
Click to expand...

On the engine I mentioned, it needed different counterweights to have the redline increased to 2700 rpm. But, if you bought it as a core, you could install it and run it for a few hundred hours, then take a couple or three months off later to have it rebuilt. Not a bad way to defer $35k of up front cost.
 
Exactly. You could possibly even do it faster down the road if the engine shop has a core that they can rebuild and ship to you and you can send your "core" back in the same crate. I have done that before with Penn Yan on an O-470. Worked great.
 
I've just picked up an 270 hour SMOH IO540C4B5. It's had a prop strike but got a guarantee that the crank would be serviceable for 14k.
Prop strike inspection is approx 8-9k. So fingers crossed I'll have an fully inspected low hour engine for 1/2 the cost of a new one.
To convert to a D4A5 requires changing the engine mount ears, and removing the hydraulic pump drive and setting up the fuel control unit to 260 hp 2700 rpm settings. Everything else is identical.
Plus as an added bonus I got an alternator and all the hoses. Plus a few aztec parts like exhaust,vacuum pump hydraulic drive, mounting ears etc to sell.
Over the past 6 months I've been watching Barnstormers and ebay I've seen about 3 engines around this price with low hours, generally requiring a prop strike inspection.
8-9k for cores. There is 1 currently 1650 hours tt but about 30 years old. It's sister engine according to the seller has just been overhauled and found to be in good condition.

Cheers

Peter.

I'll report back in a few weeks once we have opened it up and inspected it.
 
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