I'm sad to report that legal problems between the owners of Maxwell Propulsion Systems and the owners of the old NSI company have resulted in the assets of MPS being seized and sold at auction. MPS was a new vendor (as of 2005) of Subaru FF engine packages who was trying to do things right from an engineering and customer service perspective.
Gwen Maxwell who ran MPS was a class act all the way. It is very unfortunate that something like this took them out of the marketplace.
Crossflow Aero appears to have closed down as well. Their website is down and their domain name has expired last I checked. There is no answer at their phone number. About a year ago Crossflow announced their plan to certify their Subaru based conversions. The factory was moved a few years back and it appeared new financial backers were in place. It was clear however from the many phone calls and e-mails I received from unhappy customers that Crossflow had problems with customer service and other technical issues.
It's not clear where existing customers are left with regards to support and parts.
Eggenfellner is still offering his 6 cylinder conversions and a number of people are getting some good performance numbers from the engines sold in the last 3 years or so. One fellow here who I've helped is getting 165 knots TAS on 8.5 GPH and it runs beautifully with no problems at all.
Most people are getting good cooling with all the latest kit and recommendations installed. There have been only a few issues with gearboxes and some mystery valve problems on a couple engines. Activity on his Yahoo group is way down, many people getting support from Subenews instead which is very active.
Reportedly they are working on their own EMS design for the Subes. It is not clear what they are supplying to current customers. Many people are using the IVO prop to keep costs down, with the electric MTs out of sight on price now. Prices on engine packages have come way down as of late as well.
They are marketing the 100hp Honda based engine for LSA type aircraft. The engine was test flown on a Zenith earlier this year.
For 150-200hp alternative engines, Eggenfellner is about the only one left standing in North America.
The economy downturn has hurt most businesses so drastic measures have to be taken to even survive in many cases.
The alt engine business is a hard road in the best economic times, even harder now. Kudos to those who choose to stay at it.
Gwen Maxwell who ran MPS was a class act all the way. It is very unfortunate that something like this took them out of the marketplace.
Crossflow Aero appears to have closed down as well. Their website is down and their domain name has expired last I checked. There is no answer at their phone number. About a year ago Crossflow announced their plan to certify their Subaru based conversions. The factory was moved a few years back and it appeared new financial backers were in place. It was clear however from the many phone calls and e-mails I received from unhappy customers that Crossflow had problems with customer service and other technical issues.
It's not clear where existing customers are left with regards to support and parts.
Eggenfellner is still offering his 6 cylinder conversions and a number of people are getting some good performance numbers from the engines sold in the last 3 years or so. One fellow here who I've helped is getting 165 knots TAS on 8.5 GPH and it runs beautifully with no problems at all.
Most people are getting good cooling with all the latest kit and recommendations installed. There have been only a few issues with gearboxes and some mystery valve problems on a couple engines. Activity on his Yahoo group is way down, many people getting support from Subenews instead which is very active.
Reportedly they are working on their own EMS design for the Subes. It is not clear what they are supplying to current customers. Many people are using the IVO prop to keep costs down, with the electric MTs out of sight on price now. Prices on engine packages have come way down as of late as well.
They are marketing the 100hp Honda based engine for LSA type aircraft. The engine was test flown on a Zenith earlier this year.
For 150-200hp alternative engines, Eggenfellner is about the only one left standing in North America.
The economy downturn has hurt most businesses so drastic measures have to be taken to even survive in many cases.
The alt engine business is a hard road in the best economic times, even harder now. Kudos to those who choose to stay at it.
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I have a core EJ20 with #4 cyl. toasted, still on the engine mount for sale for next to nothing if anyone is interested.
