>> I believe there are other Lancair folks who are in the process of installing
V8s in their aircraft.  Liquid cooling, aluminum block/heads, good HP and BSFC
figures, purchase/overhaul price is awesome.  Lot of really good things going
for it, yet not much heard about. <<


Hope springs eternal on this issue.

People have been trying to build a  V-8 aircraft engine for general aviation ever since the RR Merlin.  

People keep forgetting that the typical TBO on the Merlin is about 300-400 hours.

There have been at least a dozen efforts in this regard.  

Can you spell  "Orenda"  ???

10's of Millions spent by the government of Canada.  Huge engineering effort over a number of years.


If you want to do this,  you really need an inverted V-8,  with 600 to 800 c.i.,  operating at 2700 RPM without a gear box, direct drive.  With the CAM profiles tweaked to cause the torque curve to peak around 2400 to 2500 RPM. Even then,  the cooling (liquid) creates lots of problems the way it is traditionally done.

To the best of my knowledge,  nobody has ever made one of these engines that had an all up weight that was as light as a TCM IO-550 on a hp/lb engine weight basis.

If you hang a gear box and boost the HP with RPM,  then you pay a weight/complexity/reliability  penalty for the gear box - - and you take a large hit on the BSFC.


As a not exact example,  but one with a gear box,  think of the Porsche Mooney engine.   BSFC was only 0.425 - - - not good for the world's finest group of engine engineers.

It was heavier than an IO-360 and less efficient.

The V-8 - aircraft engine concepts always encounter (too late) a lot of reality that is never dealt with realistically on the front end.

I have a design for a new generation (not a V-8 configuration) of aircraft piston engines,  that pretty much resolves all of these issues.  I just don't have a few million bucks to get it built, tested, and approved.

Regards,  George



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.843 / Virus Database: 573 - Release Date: 1/24/2005