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Message
Rusty, John Dyke keeps telling us builders that a rotary
installation
will cost more than a Lycoming. You're the only person I
know that has
written checks for both in such a short time, and
recently. So all
told, how would you compare the cost? How about
if you had to figure in
your time at shop rates?
Hi Ernest,
This is indeed a complicated question,
and not something that can be answered universally. Will a rotary cost more to install? It can if you
want it to (Powersport, Mistral), but for most, it will not cost more
initially. Not only are there
multiple option that can change the cost of the package, but even "cost" itself
means something different to everyone.
One primary variable is resale. If you
had two identical RV-8's, except for the engine, the one with the new Lyclone
would sell for about $90k, and the new rotary would sell for maybe $60-70k, and
only to a very limited market. Since I seem to go through projects
pretty quickly, I have to consider this as part of the cost of the
engine choice. Others, Ed for example, are perfectly content to own one
airplane forever, so it's not fair to count resale in his case. Some
plane have terrible resale anyway, so maybe the engine won't make that much
difference. Bottom line is that you have to look at the market for your
particularly plane, and then decide if it even matters.
Another variable is whether you look at
only the initial cost, or total cost of the time you own the
plane. How many people have gone through several engines before
a new Lyclone would even need a top overhaul? How much money have most
folks spent reworking their installation, different props, redrives, cooling
systems, intakes, etc. I think you have to look at the overall
ownership, not just installed cost.
Barry brought up some valid points
about extra costs for the Lyclones. It ain't just the engine. My
RV-8 engine was $21,600 including shipping, customs, etc. The FWF kit
contains everything (and I DO mean everything) FWF except the mount, prop, and
spinner. In my case, this was about $4300, which included a new
prop governor. The Blended airfoil Hartzell is $5800.
That's a total of $31,700. My best guess is that a new Renesis, with
a CS prop would cost at least $20k, and that's only the first engine
:-) Your definition of "cost", and your spin on the calculations will
determine whether this is a good value for you :-)
I do believe Barry overstated the
difficulty of installing the Lycoming a bit though, particularly for something
as refined as the Van's RV kits. I would bet I can do the total
engine install on the RV-8 in 150 hours. A rotary would be at least 1500
hours. I don't tend to count the cost of my time, but if I did, the
rotary wouldn't look so hot :-)
To answer the question directly, I would
estimate that I spent somewhere between $15k to $20k on the RV-3
engine project. I made Rich promise never to tell me what all
the receipts add up to :-) Overall, I probably lost about $10k on
the whole RV-3 project.
To make a long answer even longer, I
don't regret the RV-3 rotary project at all. It was something I've
wanted to do for as long as I've been building planes, and the idea wasn't
going way on it's own. Fortunately, I put a Lycoming in the original
RV-8, so I made more than enough money when it sold to cover the loss on
the RV-3. Since RV-3's have such a low resale anyway, it was a
pretty good choice for the experiment. I was pretty tempted to put a
rotary in the RV-8, but in the end, I think the Lyclone is a better choice "for
me".
A final note- the question was about
money, NOT which engine is better. If you feel the rotary is that
much better than a Lycoming, then you can rationalize any cost you
want. Also note that "alternate engine" can be substituted for
"rotary" for this entire message.
Cheers,
Rusty (probably could have mounted my
Lyclone in the time it took to type this
<g>)
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