“Bill, Yes I feel your pain, I suggest that you start posting complaints on all the builders’ web sites and ask those members to send Performance a note asking for them to make good on their promise. …”

 

Apparently I will need the same support.  

 

Here is the latest pain report - Promise of warranty support, apparently hollow.  We shall see.

 

My IO-550 from Performance Engines (PE) came with 10:1 pistons.  At 60 hours it was pumping lots of oil on the belly.  Steve Colwell had a similar problem with his PE IO-550 and pointed me in the right direction. 

 

Cause: the forged PE pistons have lower silicon content than cast pistons (from ECI, for example) and have a higher expansion coefficient than cast pistons.  When installed with insufficient piston to bore clearance, the forged pistons rub which also scores the cylinders. 

 

The rub also damages the ring lands, widens the ring grooves, and leads to “ring flutter” on descent when the combustion pressures are not enough to hold the compression ring down at the top of piston stroke.  Result: rings flop up and down (flutter) in the excessively wide grooves creating heavy blow-by at reduced manifold pressure (below 18-19 inches) exactly as reported by Steve Colwell here some time ago.  The blow-by is large enough that it overloads the air oil separator and oil pukes out during descent.

 

As suggested, we measured crank case pressure and saw pressure rise dramatically at the beginning of descent.  We then pulled the cylinders and confirmed the problem.  Six scrap pistons, and six scored cylinders. 

 

I did a lot of research, wrote a summary report with excerpts from articles and papers addressing pistons, silicon content, expansion, clearances, etc and sent a copy to PE.  I can post it here if anyone is interested.

 

It was clearly a PE assembly screw up: forged pistons installed with cast piston clearances.   The failure was per text book, and 100% predictable.

 

Being halfway around the world, I sent photos of pistons and cylinders to ECI (cylinder manufacturers) and PE.  ECI suggested honing the cylinders to see if score marks would come out of the CermaNil cylinder coating.  

 

I proposed the following warranty settlement with PE: PE buys me new pistons and rings (this time they will be ECI stock compression ratio cast pistons) and will pay for the hone and cylinder repair.  I will pay for labor at my end and shipping. 

 

Ron agreed.

 

I bought the special ECI diamond hone kit (about $500 plus shipping), honed per instructions, and took more photos sent to PE and ECI.  Some score marks remain in all cylinders.  ECI inspected the photos and said ship all the cylinders back for repair.  Also I will need new pistons.   I wrote ECI and PE, notified ECI about PE’s agreement to pay for pistons, rings, and cylinder repair, and asked for an ECI RMA number.

 

ECI has been terrific, responding promptly and completely to every email.  I tried to make arrangements to have ECI do the work and charge PE as PE has agreed.

 

Friday I found that ECI has legal action against PE for non-payment.

 

Understandably, ECI does not expect that PE will pay for piston replacement and cylinder repair because of PE history of non-payment.  I have written Stuart (again; many, many emails have been exchanged) for guidance, and he has responded that he is contacting Ron, yet again.  I am prepping cylinders for shipment across the Pacific and awaiting a reply from PE.   

 

Should PE have used additional bore clearance for the high compression pistons?  Of course.  Somebody screwed up and used the wrong clearance spec.  The engine shows other signs of being hastily built. 

 

Will they provide the promised warranty support?  We shall see.  I may be asking the Lancair group for referrals to US lawyers who have dealt with PE in the past.

 

Note: Stuart responds to emails, but does not have any authority.  He forwards emails to Ron.  Only once has Ron replied to Stuart, to give an OK to my request for warranty support.  Ron does not communicate.  Apparently he does not pay his bills.  He needs a business manager, badly.  Let’s hope PE does not go down the tubes leaving a lot of customers high and dry.  The signs are not good.  We shall see.

 

I will keep everyone posted on my success in getting the promised warranty support.

 

Fuming Fred